


Winter's Sons

by Ammaren (Ammar)



Category: Bleach
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 09:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 50,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4741541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ammar/pseuds/Ammaren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a body turns up at the Eastern Wall, run through with a zanpakuto and a sword of ice, all evidence points to Hitsugaya Toshiro. But this is only the first in a string of killings. With Central Forty-Six having issued an order for his execution, Hitsugaya must work against time to clear his name and find a killer strong enough to take on a captain. The past is never dead…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First of Autumn

**I. THE FIRST OF AUTUMN**

Here it was, he thought. This was where it had begun.

He breathed, feeling the air move through his lungs. He stretched; muscle responded as he moved through the swordsman's stretches. He'd always been the better swordsman. But life, it seemed, was full of surprises.

It was a cool autumn night, and there was a hint of a bite to the air. He bent down and peered in the dry grass. His fingers closed, for a moment, around the hilt of a shattered sword. The hilt and perhaps seven centimetres of steel was all that was left. The wind and the rain had done their work well; the wrappings of the hilt were dull and smudged. He rubbed at a corner of it, and then his hands closed around the rusted metal blade and flexed. It came apart in his hands.

An old blade, he thought. A good blade. It had not been treated kindly. He felt anger at that. "I expected better for you, old friend," he said. The sound of his own voice surprised him. It had been a long time since he had heard himself speak.

He laid the blade to rest again, on the dirt. With a word, purple flames blazed to life in his other hand. He held it for a moment, and then set it against the discarded sword. The flames burned bright orange as they consumed the broken sword, leaving nothing behind as they roared and then vanished from existence.

He waited, a moment more. Perhaps out of sentiment. He was not often given to such urges, but he waited nonetheless, trying to discern some sign that the past still lived. Finally, he turned away.

The wind whispered softly through the dying grass as he left, pale with first frost in the light of the waning moon. It blew bright-umber and dried-brown leaves across the killing ground.

* * *

Autumn, Hitsugaya thought, was not his favourite season as a captain. Autumn marked the beginning of an unending series of reports; pertaining to affairs such as logistics, promotions, transfers between the squads, looking through new applicants aspiring to a place in the Tenth Division of the Gotei Thirteen.

At least he could trust Matsumoto to handle division readiness, as she always did. He'd write the report if she would take the whole mess of handling new recruits out of his hands and consider it a fair trade. He had nothing against training fish. Handling orientation was another thing altogether, and it was just as well that Matsumoto was better with people.

At least that made one of them. He snorted, and blew until the ink on the report he was writing had dried.

This autumn was the worst of the lot. It marked the changing of the guard; a length and utterly ceremonial process where the King's Seal was taken from its normal place of honour in the Central Forty-Six compound and shifted to the compound of the division that would now assume responsibility for guarding the Seal until the next quarter-century. After a week, which was exactly how long it took for the ceremonies to be complete, the Seal would be once more returned to the Central Forty-Six and kept under heavy guard.

And during this particular changing of the guard, responsibility for the Seal would shift to the Tenth Division, which made things an administrative nightmare. While it was no longer true that the Seal would be guarded strictly by members of the Tenth Division, patrol reports still had to be collated, officers reassigned, and schedules displaced. On top of the usual paperwork— _autumn paperwork_ , Hitsugaya thought, in disgust—that he already had on his plate.

Twenty five years, and this would be Zaraki's mess to sort out, not his. Twenty five.

Balefully, Hitsugaya eyed the pile of applications submitted from this year's graduating students at the Academy. He wondered if he could sit on them all winter; tried to recall the deadline. _Spring_. He could take all winter then; nevermind the flood of anxious letters from the Academy when they wondered about the hold-up. They didn't have to handle the transfer ceremony.

"Ah, Taicho!" A loud groan disrupted his train of thought as the door to the administrative office flew open and a strawberry blond stumbled into the room and collapsed on top of the sofa. He'd stacked completed paperwork on that sofa once. Never again.

"Matsumoto," he said. "What is it?"

"Our new recruits this year are horrible!" Matsumoto moaned, and Hitsugaya got up to tramp across the office and shut the door before someone heard. It probably didn't help, he thought grumpily. The whole division would know of it soon enough. If there was anything that moved quickly in Soul Society, it was gossip. Shinigami were inveterate gossips, or so it seemed. And eavesdroppers.

"Close the door before you do that," he admonished her. For all the good it did. "You say that every year."

"This year, it's true," she replied, closing her eyes and stretching out. "Taicho, are you sure the Academy isn't lying when they send the application letters? I just had three recruits fail a basic drill manuever. Some kid managed to hit the recruits next to him with live steel. A whole row couldn't even manage a proper turn. The formation looks nothing like a parade formation and more like a sake spill. And two of the new recruits threw up at the sight of blood, when the accident happened. Fourth Division had to send a team down to evacuate the wounded, and they were laughing at us, Taicho. I swear," she said darkly, "The Tenth Division will be the laughingstock of Soul Society!"

Hitsugaya sighed, and rubbed at his temples. Not now, he almost pleaded. Not now. "For the ceremony?"

Matsumoto nodded. "I need sake," she moaned again. "A nice, long soak in a hot spring, and sake. Lots of sake."

"You'll have to settle for a cold shower," Hitsugaya said. He didn't tell her to watch her drinking. She knew better than to be thoroughly drunk in the lead-up to the changing of the guard. "Who's running the drills now?"

"The seated officers," Matsumoto said. "I split them into their squads and had the officer commanding each squad handle the drills." He accepted the faint rebuke in her voice; of course that was what she would do. What else was chain of command for?

"And the recruits?"

"Arbitrarily assigned to the most senior squads," Matsumoto replied. "And we owe Sone a bottle of good sake." Sone Zenko was the third seat, and as such, the officer who commanded the second most senior squad in the division. As the lieutenant and nominal second seat, Matsumoto's squad was the most senior, but Hitsugaya supposed that she'd foisted them off on Sone in her escape to the administrative office.

"We?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"We," Matsumoto agreed cheerfully. She propped herself up on her elbows. "I decided," she said, "that since you wouldn't have wanted to be running the recruits through basic drills, you wouldn't mind contributing to Sone's sake."

"And as a captain," Hitsugaya said, his voice dry, "I'm supposed to contribute to the cause of encouraging one of my officers to drink?"

"It's encouraging division welfare, Taicho, that's a good cause!" Knowing that the battle was already won before it had begun—Hitsugaya would have kept his word to Sone, even though it was given by proxy—Matsumoto changed the subject. "How many more days to the ceremony?"

"A week," Hitsugaya said. "We'll be lucky to get to the end of division reports and settle the ceremony logistics by then. I've put in a hell butterfly to the Captain-Commander asking for an extension."

"Ah, he'll grant it, Taicho!" Matsumoto said, waving her hand dismissively. "Shunsui always used to put in for an extension. It didn't matter if it was granted anyway; who goes through paperwork that quickly?"

That was something they were never going to agree on. Nevertheless, Hitsugaya said, "The Tenth Division has not and will not be submitting late paperwork while I am captain." It was a point of pride for him. It was paperwork, certainly, mostly boring and some of it didn't even seem important, but it was something he was supposed to handle and Hitsugaya would be damned before he shirked his responsibilities.

He recognised the amused smirk; Matsumoto's lips twitched. "As you wish, Captain," she said, managing to narrowly avoid sounding patronising.

He stared at the quartermaster's report that he was working on and then slowly put it aside. Since Matsumoto was here, they were better off worrying about the impending ceremonies. He could do the reports later, by himself. "Who are we posting to Central Forty-Six?"

"I was thinking Sone's squad," she said slowly. "And ours. Precedence given by seniority. Captain Soifon has already sent a dispatch informing us of the posting of her onmitsukido units along the planned route. There's never been a problem with transporting the Seal to headquarters, but there's no sense in taking risks."

The route. His memory had always been perfect, and Hitsugaya thought back a few moments before he saw the route in his head, clear and sharp. It was a ceremony, which meant that while the squads would begin at Central Forty-Six at the crack of dawn, they would inevitably march past all the division barracks in Soul Society, taking a long and winding route before reaching their own division headquarters.

"Keep the fish at HQ," he said. "Put them all together in a temporary squad, or divide them if you have to. Don't assign them to a squad yet."

"The sixth squad is under-strength," Matsumoto warned. She always kept track of those things.

He'd almost forgotten. "Put them together with the fish, then." The sixth squad was high enough on the seniority ladder that the men could probably drill the new recruits to the point of competency. Or, Hitsugaya thought cynically, an appearance of competency.

He knew more than enough about appearances.

"You want them to drill the fish?" Matsumoto made a face. "Taicho! Now you've got me using the word."

"I have bad habits," he deadpanned. As far as he remembered, he'd picked it up from hearing some of Madarame's rants at the new recruits everytime the Eleventh faced their new intake. He'd long ago given up yelling at them and simply resigned himself to finding another place to work.

Matsumoto was grinning as though she'd won the lottery. "You're in a very good mood today. It must be the paperwork. Or does Taicho keep some secrets from me, hmm?"

"We all have secrets," he said, quietly. More than anything, the tone of his voice destroyed the light-heartedness of the moment, and put off any further discussion. Matsumoto said nothing. There was nothing she could have said, in response to that.

* * *

The next week, Hitsugaya took Matsumoto with him to the Central Forty-Six compound. He'd been there on his own slightly over a week ago, and so the guards recognised him and waved him and Matsumoto through. He wavered between exasperation and relief; he'd had to pass a battery of tests meant to verify his identity on his previous visit. If there was anything good that had come out of the Aizen incident, it was that many of the gaping holes in Soul Society's security—places where they had become complacent, he thought—had now been tightened. Access to Central Forty-Six was even more stringently controlled than it had previously been.

In addition, the compound had been refurbished with additional security measures meant to detect and eliminate intruders. Still, Hitsugaya thought disapprovingly, it seemed that security wasn't all that much tighter if they were waving Matsumoto through simply because she was with him. But he was pressed for time as it was, and all in all, he didn't want to have to pass the identity verification tests once more. They would have to run that gauntlet on the day of the ceremony, but that was tomorrow's worry.

"I've never seen the King's Seal before," Matsumoto said quietly, as they walked past long hallway after long hallway. They turned left at the junction that led to the central chambers, but the corridors in the compound all looked the same. Ordinarily, he would have called her on that unprofessional lapse into small talk, but they'd both walked the same kind of passageways, seen the slaughter that Aizen had wrought in the Central Forty-Six chambers, and he didn't think the memories would ever go away.

So instead, Hitsugaya said, "I have." At her quizzical glance, he added, "I was here on business around a week ago."

"What about me?" Matsumoto pouted, and tried to give him her best attempt at appearing pitiful. Hitsugaya sighed.

"You were overseeing the new intake of fish," he said simply. "I did not want to pull you away from your duties. In any case, I'd come as a precaution, nothing more." A wry smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Apparently, I'm taking the transfer ceremony more seriously than my predecessors have."

"That's because it's a formality, Taicho. No one's ever stolen the King's Seal during the changing of the guard ceremony before. No one," Matsumoto added, "would be crazy enough to do it."

He closed his eyes for a moment. "Regardless," he said, firmly. It was the tone that ended all discussion. "If anyone wanted to obtain the King's Seal, penetrating Central Forty-Six would be suicide. They'd wait for the transfer ceremony and attack the procession to steal the Seal en-route. Or attack the division barracks where the Seal is temporarily held."

Of course. It was the only thing that made sense, and as unlikely as an attack was, it was still his duty to be paranoid, to foresee all possible complications. And then, at the end of the week, when the Seal was safely in the keeping of Central Forty-Six, he would breathe a sigh of relief.

"But Taicho," Matsumoto began. They were drawing near the end of the corridor. Hitsugaya held out a hand and Matsumoto instantly fell silent, schooling her features into that of the serious lieutenant. The doubled guard was standard at the entrance to the secure vault; the door itself was barred and wouldn't open to his touch until at the ceremony tomorrow.

Hisagi Shuuhei, lieutenant and acting Captain of the Ninth Division was there. Not even the guard, all shinigami from the Ninth Division, could open the vault; access would have been restricted to the former Captain of the Ninth, Tosen Kaname. Now, though, Hisagi had access and he laid his palm against the indent on the formidable barred door that loomed in front of them. "Captain Hitsugaya," he greeted. "Lieutenant Matsumoto."

"Hisagi," Hitsugaya said. Matsumoto's greeting came after his; still a hair less than strictly formal.

They'd sent word of their arrival, of course, as well as their purpose. Everything had been approved and settled in advance, at a speed which seemed to be increasingly rare in Soul Society these days. Hitsugaya felt the cold scrape of iron against his tongue, tasted black despair and sharp blades of whirling death as the palpable sense of Hisagi's reiatsu grew. Hisagi was only a Lieutenant, not a true Captain; still, the strength in his reiatsu was appreciable. The air around his hand shivered, burned an incandescent, killing green. That was the form Hisagi's reiatsu took then, Hitsugaya thought.

Behind him, there was, for a moment, a flicker of cinnamon and vanilla and a purr like warm sunlight, like warm cinders among the ashes of a fire. Matsumoto had surreptiously drawn on a little of her reiatsu to ward off the side-effects of being so close to the amount of power Hisagi was calling on. Barely detectable, but he was attuned to her reiatsu, and he could have told she was doing so from ten miles off. Hisagi himself was beginning to sweat, but bore down with stoic determination.

The vault doors slid open, retreated into the stone. Hisagi said, "I'll be glad to not have to do this again, after tomorrow."

"No kidding," Matsumoto murmured, fanning at herself. Hitsugaya shot her a look.

"Thank you, Hisagi," he said, as he headed on past the open doorway and into the vault. This vault had been built of sekkiseki; he'd have known the disconcerting feeling anywhere. Sekkiseki neutralised spiritual energy thrown at it, and was virtually impervious to physical attack. It registered to his senses as a smooth, black void…sheer emptiness. There was another passageway; it led onwards. Hisagi let them in, past the other two doors, and then he gave them a curt nod of farewell, striding back along the long corridor. The soft scrape of his sandals echoed in the hollow recesses of the passageway.

Sekkiseki drained spiritual energy over time, interfered with their ability to sense reiatsu. Hitsugaya was not inclined to linger for longer than he had to.

"Matsumoto. You had a question."

"Why all this security?" her loose gesture seemed to take in everything; the triple-doored vault, the doubled guards, and the security nightmare that was the Central Forty-Six compound. "The King's Seal is important, I know, but isn't this excessive?"

"There's never such a thing as too secure," Hitsugaya said. He relented and added, looking over at her, "You're right. The King's Seal is subject to high security because it is invested with the full authority of the Soul King."

"And the Seal represents Central Forty-Six's mandate in governing Soul Society from the Soul King himself, I know," Matsumoto said. "It functions as symbol of the Soul King's authority and his presence in the rulings Central Forty-Six makes."

"You _do_ remember."

"Taicho, just because I don't do the paperwork doesn't mean I slack off on assignments," she said, a little more sharply than intended.

He was silent for a few moments. "That was out of line. I apologise. But the Seal _is_ more than just a symbol. It is actually invested with the Soul King's power. Think about spiritual energy enough to tear a world apart, and a measure of that is infused within the King's Seal."

Matsumoto gasped. "Taicho, that's…"

"…restricted information," Hitsugaya said softly. "Captain level restriction. Am I understood?"

Matsumoto straightened up. "Yes, sir," she said. "No one will hear of it from me."

He accepted that with a nod, as the passageway opened out to a small chamber. This vault had been built to do nothing more than house and protect the King's Seal. While part of the passageway had sunlight filtering in through grating in the ceiling, the chamber itself was dark. " _Tsukero,"_ Hitsugaya said, and a pale light blossomed over his outstretched hand.

The King's Seal was set into a raised, rectangular block of stone, in an engraved hollow meant to contain it, lined with deep orange silk. Such a tiny thing, Hitsugaya thought, even though he'd seen it once before. He let Matsumoto take a look at it. The King's Seal was made of a dark, glossy material, and as Hitsugaya stepped closed to the pedestal, his light reflected off the polished surface, revealing a dusting of tiny, sparkling grains within.

Matsumoto sucked in a breath in appreciation. "Wow," she said. "That's some Seal, Taicho."

Hitsugaya picked it up, very carefully. He could feel the engravings on the surface of the Seal; he didn't know what it was made of, but it reminded him of obsidian. As he had that day, he _felt_ it; a carefully-constructed matrix of power to his senses, mathematical and precise. Impenetrable. The last time he'd handled the Seal, it had cooled slightly to his touch, as if it had in some way reacted to his presence."Sense it," he said, handing the Seal over to Matsumoto.

Startled, she almost dropped it. "Matsumoto!" Hitsugaya exclaimed. For a moment, he hadn't dared breathe. Though he was not sure a fall could damage it, the last thing they needed was to explain a broken Seal. "Don't drop it."

"Sorry, Taicho," Matsumoto said, and she did genuinely sound sorry. By the kido light, he could make out the confusion on her face. "It…grew cold to the touch." Not this time, he thought. He frowned. She added, "It startled me."

The Seal had a specific set of powers, Hitsugaya knew. But he wasn't privy to even _those_ : he wasn't a senior Captain, and his job wasn't to use the thing but to guard it. Whatever it did, that wasn't his concern now.

Aloud, he said, "Thoughts?"

Lips pursed, Matsumoto said, "It's closed-off. Strange for an artefact containing so much power." She shook her head slightly, and the focus returned. "I know how the Seal feels like now, Captain."

He took it back from her, and set it back in position. "Enough room in the passageway for two lines of men," he said quietly. "But not down here. I was thinking before the first door. One squad."

"Two would be better," Matsumoto said. "One squad on each side of the corridor. Honour guard positions."

He was shaking his head almost immediately. "No room to manoeuvre. Purely ceremonial."

"It _is_ a ceremony. The compound itself will be secured. We've already put six squads to securing the perimeter. Captain Soifon's onmitsukido units will be bolstering them."

"Have them do a sweeping screen," Hitsugaya said. "Diagonals, across the route, ahead of the squads escorting the Seal. Captain Soifon mentioned she was deploying the onmitsukido along the route."

Matsumoto nodded. The squads had been briefed on the route, and sent on manoeuvres, with the effect that they were as familiar as they could be. This was nothing more than her Captain's thoroughness. The orders the squads had been given could shift to accommodate this adjustment to their assignments.

"Taicho, do you think something is up?"

He paused, mid-step. "Hmm?"

"You seem…on edge."

He hesitated, for a heartbeat. "No," he finally said. "It's nothing." His mouth quirked in that smirk, but it lacked his characteristic almost-arrogance. His heart wasn't in it, she could tell. He was distracted.

"Taicho."

"What I feel doesn't matter, Matsumoto," he said. The harsh edge was back to his voice. Weariness; was there something else? She couldn't place the emotion. "Let's go."

* * *

Later, just before she dozed off, Matsumoto realised: it had been impatience, even strain.

* * *

For the first time in years, Hitsugaya dreamed of a plain of ice, broad with crushed crystals of ice underfoot and featureless. The only thing that stretched on into the distance was the empty plain, and the distant horizon where icebound land met pale white sky and faint clouds.

Ice crunched as he moved. He barely felt the cold, even through his thin socks and straw sandals. Each step compacted the ice further. There seemed to be nothing here, he thought. In the same breath, he somehow knew that wasn't true. And then he looked up, and saw two moons overhead in the sunlit sky.

A blade of ice sprouted between his ribs; he gasped, blood spilling out of his lips as the blade twisted and he tried to turn around to catch a glimpse of his attacker but failed. He fell to his knees as the world went dark and he died.

Hitsugaya woke up. He took a deep breath, felt where the attacker in his dream had struck him from behind. There was nothing here, of course. It had only been a dream. He stood up and peered through the paper-screened window, sliding it back.

The sky had not yet begun to turn light, but nevertheless, he drew his zanpakuto and practised sword exercises in the courtyard outside until the sun rose.


	2. Deep Shadows

**II. DEEP SHADOWS**

The squads assembled shortly after sunrise. Hitsugaya ducked into his quarters to splash water on his face, and to change into his best shihakusho. It took him a few moments to find a neatly folded haori, and he pulled that on, straightening out the folds in the light cloth as best as he could.

He'd spent the previous night polishing Hyorinmaru with a clean cloth and a little oil. Now, he drew the blade once more, making sure all was in order before he sheathed his zanpakuto. The sword went into its blued sheath, and then the shoulder baldric went on and Hyorinmaru slid into in his customary position against Hitsugaya's right shoulder.

He was out of his quarters a few moments later. There was no sign of Matsumoto. He sighed, and crossed the corridor to her quarters, rapping on the closed door. "In a moment, Taicho!" he heard her call out in response.

"Matsumoto, you're going to be late!"

"One moment!" This time, she sounded breathless, and a little frazzled. He left her be, satisfied that she was getting ready, and headed out to the courtyard outside the main barracks, where the squads were assembling.

"Hitsugaya-taicho!" That was Sone, snapping to attention as he arrived. "First, second, third, fifth, seventeenth and nineteenth squads are fully assembled and have passed inspection."

"Good," he said. "What about the rest?"

"Assembling, sir," Sone said. Beyond him, Hitsugaya could see squads arriving from the barracks, forming up in the courtyard. The seated officer commanding each squad walked up and down the serried ranks, pointing out where a shinigami had failed inspection, and sending them back to the barracks to fix whatever fault it was. Punishments, if any, were not going to be carried out on the spot today, not with the ceremony so soon. Hitsugaya was pleased to notice that there weren't many who failed inspection.

"Good work, Sone," he said quietly. "The same goes for the squads which assembled earlier."

He sensed it a moment before Matsumoto stepped out of a flash step, a hair's breadth behind him. "Good morning, Taicho," she said, cheerfully. "Don't you know better than to hurry a woman when she's changing into her clothes? I was naked, you know. That's hardly nice!"

He took a deep, steadying breath. Sone didn't even bother to hide his amusement. He was, incidentally, one of the few officers who would have been privy to something like this. "Sone," he said.

"Sir."

"What about the sixth squad?" He had surveyed the courtyard, but found no sign of them.

"Fish," Sone said, shortly. "Hitomi's taken them to the training yards, to yell at them a bit. There was a bit of an accident."

Fish. Hitsugaya almost wanted to groan. This was the morning of the transfer ceremony and they still hadn't gotten their act together? "What happened?"

"Kido accident," Sone explained, with a wry shrug. "Apparently, a new recruit was convinced they could use a modified Shakkaho to…clean their shihakusho. Too many mud-splatters, and too little time. There's a big hole in the barracks roof."

"Was convinced?" Hitsugaya said sharply. "By who?" He already knew the answer even before he'd asked it. The older, more seasoned shinigami often played tricks on fish, making them do all sorts of silly things. Pranks, disguised as words of advice from a friendly veteran. He'd weathered his own share of such things in his own time. The appearance of callow youth had made him an especially tempting target, despite beginning with a comission as a seated officer in the Eighth.

"Iida," Sone said. Hitsugaya remembered that name. The man had two previous incidents on his disciplinary record; he was a joker who had a tendency to take things several steps too far. As it had gone this time.

"Put him on punishment duty for the next month," Hitsugaya ordered. He would be surprised if Hitomi hadn't beaten him to it. Seventh seat Hitomi Kaoru was small, with hair completely gone grey, and could beat any man in her squad bare-handed without her zanpakuto. She was also terribly strict, and very competent. Hitsugaya knew that many of the men called her 'Granny' behind her back, and that the label was in fact true. Hitomi Kaoru's grandsons were currently in their third year at the Academy, and he did wonder if he would one day be seeing them in the Tenth. She hadn't been his seventh seat for long: she'd been promoted from the eighth when Takezoe, the original seventh seat had filled the opening left by the death of their fifth seat during the war.

Takezoe Kokichiro. Another good man, Hitsugaya thought. Reliable, and utterly loyal. He looked for him, and found him inspecting the assembled fourth squad.

"Hitomi has him drawing half-pay for a month, sir. The rest will go to paying for the damages." As expected.

"Then they should coincide," Hitsugaya said, coldly. "This is not the first time Iida's had a disciplinary incident. The morning of the changing of the guard is not the time to be playing foolish pranks on the fish."

"I'll inform Hitomi, sir," Sone said. And then he added, "Doubtless she'll agree Iida's had it coming."

Hitsugaya nodded to Sone and the man left, flash-stepped in the direction of the training yard. Matsumoto was speaking to five of the seated officers. They acknowleded their orders and then headed back to their respective squads.

"Well?" he said, moving in behind her.

"Taicho!" she exclaimed, startling. "You shouldn't scare me like this." She motioned to her chest. "They have a tendency to jump out when startled!" He surveyed her. Matsumoto Rangiku was generally charming, if lazy. Today, she'd made an effort to tidy up her golden blonde hair, and had worn her shihakusho _just_ a little higher. Not by much, he thought dryly, not if he was still confronted by that same view. Haineko hung by her side, the ordinarily dull sheath gleaming from a recent cleaning. _Parade best,_ he'd ordered, and she'd done—mostly—that.

"Enough, Matsumoto," he said. "The others?"

"Seventh, eighth, tenth, eleventh, and fourteenth squads were reporting for duty," Matsumoto said.

"What _is_ with the hold-up?" Hitsugaya muttered.

Mastumoto almost hid her smile. "They haven't had to do something like this in years," she said, just as quietly.

"Parades count," Hitsugaya retorted.

"Not as big," Matsumoto reminded him, and of course she was right. The changing of the guard was ostentatious enough to attract attention from much of the Seireitei, and if he were inclined to do so, Hitsugaya would have bet that most of the other Captains would have given their subordinates leave to come and watch.

And they would be in attendance, of course. The other Captains would drop by to watch, to laugh, and to be glad that they didn't have to do this until the next twenty five years, or however long it took.

Hitsugaya sighed, and wondered if he was suffering from the beginnings of a massive headache. At least Ichimaru wasn't a Captain any longer. One glance at Matsumoto and that minor relief died. Ichimaru and Matsumoto had been friends since childhood; for that alone, he had respected her friendship with Ichimaru and refused to put her in a position where she had to choose between them.

But he'd done that anyway, when fighting Ichimaru. And she'd chosen her loyalty to her Captain.

Sometimes, he thought, looking at the assembled squads, at Takezoe trudging towards them, no doubt reporting that his squad had passed inspection, at Matsumoto, and at Sone and Hitomi, leading the very much chastened sixth squad back from the training yard—sometimes, life gave you people you didn't deserve. Good people.

There were days when Hitsugaya didn't regret becoming the Captain of the Tenth Division. This was shaping up to be one of them.

* * *

As he'd suspected, the ceremony drew plenty of spectators. Hitsugaya recognised only the splashes of white; the Captains in their haoris, come to look and laugh. Some of the younger Lieutenants had come as well. He thought he recognised Lieutenant Kira's blond hair and Lieutenant Abarai's flame-red, even in the press of the crowd. And of course he recognised the flamboyant floral haori that Kyoraku wore. Their eyes met, and his former Captain tipped his straw hat to him; the hilts of Katen Kyokotsu were clearly visible. Stern Lieutenant Ise, Hitsugaya recognised only because she stood beside Kyoraku, and because she'd taken over the job he used to do.

In a way, he'd been nothing more than a placeholder.

They moved on, the squads marching down towards the Central Forty-Six compound. It took almost an entire day to gather the Divisions when a meeting was called; the Seireitei was that large. Now, they were to spend almost a day in a march around the Sereitei, as a matter of tradition.

Hitsugaya was certain that most of the shinigami in his division didn't like tradition very much at the moment.

A feeling of unease swept over him. He moved as though in a dream; as though some of the lingering traces of the previous night's dream had clung stubbornly to him. Faces in the crowd twisted, appeared and vanished, gave way to dead faces.

Hyorinmaru was silent, dreadfully silent.

And then a face, one he thought he recognised, too fleeting. Their eyes met, and there was a roaring in his ears. The world fell away and there it was, dark midnight blue-violet, deep and bruising and the sharp cold clarity of ice enfolded him.

There was a surge of reiatsu, he remembered as much. As clear as a winter bell; ringing in his ears, surging with half-remembered days of sunshine—

— _fresh blood on dying grass, on a clear autumn's day_

"Taicho!" Matsumoto hissed in his ear. White-knuckled he gripped Hyorinmaru's hilt, then realised he was doing it and let go of his zanpakuto. She blazed with concern; he could feel it written all over her reiatsu, he'd been out of sorts today, he thought.

"I'm fine," he said, out of the corner of his mouth. He straightened up, glad he'd still been walking, no matter where his attention had been. She refused to budge. "Get back to your position, Lieutenant Matsumoto."

Her eyes were pale grey, like the morning sea, like the sea swollen with stormwater as she said, "Yes, Captain Hitsugaya," and stalked back.

There had been no time to explain. The world flaked and fell apart, spiderwebbed with cracks like thin ice and then shattered. The squads continued on their ceremonial march to the Central Forty-Six compound.

What had he felt?

Hitsugaya set that aside for later, when he didn't have the eyes of most of the Gotei Thirteen and the Seireitei on him, and then forged on.

* * *

"Well, well," Kyoraku murmured, just loud enough that Ise Nanao could hear him. She glanced at him, eyebrows quirked in a silent question.

"I don't know," Kyoraku admitted, and that surprised her. He folded his arms across his chest, tucked his fan back somewhere in the voluminous folds of his pink floral haori. "It reminds me of something. Or someone."

She hadn't felt anything at all.

He took one glance at her expression and laughed. "Oh, don't worry, Nanao-chan," he said. "It's nothing to worry about. Enjoy the display that the Tenth Division is putting up for us, eh?"

Nanao reflected that Kyoraku never worried, and he had a habit of lying and he was terribly lazy. But even so, he glanced out to the side for a moment, a pensive expression on his face. He was, she thought, in addition to his list of faults, a superbly terrible liar.

* * *

The squads moved into position outside the Central Forty-Six compound, and then stood at attention as their commanding officers ordered them to a halt. The gathered squads of the Ninth Division awaited them in identical positions, right there.

Ordinarily, the lieutenants would accompany their captains to meet at the very centre of the square. The Ninth Division had no captain, and Hisagi was acting-Captain and so his third seat stood in his place as acting-Lieutenant. They met; Hitsugaya exchanged the set of formal bows with Hisagi, while Matsumoto and Hisagi's third seat stood at attention. He drew Hyorinmaru, watched the well-cared for steel flash brightly in the sunlight, and laid it lightly across his outstretched palms and then bowed again, presenting the zanpakuto to Hisagi.

Hisagi echoed his movements, drawing his own zanpakuto and laying it across his hands. They bowed to each other; then Hitsugaya made a fist, lightly, over his zanpakuto blade. Hyorinmaru's edge was sharp and true; he felt a light sting, and then in the next moment, blood began to drip through the fingers of his sword-hand. He sheathed Hyorinmaru with a flourish, Hisagi doing the same. He pressed his bloody, clenched fist to his heart.

Blood dripped to the stone below.

Hisagi nodded, and then made an about-face, a quick, graceful gesture. They moved into the structure of the Central Forty-Six then, Matsumoto and Hisagi's third seat remaining where they were.

They walked wordlessly down the corridors, down to the vault. This was the part that none of the onlookers were allowed to witness, but still, neither of them spoke, until they were at the doors of the vault. The first door loomed before them, the first of three. It was, Hitsugaya thought dryly, very much like becoming a Captain.

No Captain was allowed to speak of their investiture. Not the formal one, the one that anyone in the Gotei Thirteen and one of the four great noble families could attend. That was public, and to forbid a Captain to speak of it was pointless. No, the one that Captains were bound to silence on was the one given before the Captain-Commander, with two Captains to bear witness. Doubtless, Hisagi would know in his own time.

Hisagi's reiatsu burned now, the flash of verdant green bleeding back into the dim corridor. He cut his palm on his own zanpakuto, watched as the blood flowed, and then pressed his hand to the indentation in the door. There was an indentation on the right side of the door; Hitsugaya pressed his bleeding hand to that one, and marshalled his reiatsu. It burst forth, pale and the silvered faint-blue of creeping ice. "My left is the white poppy that grants oblivion," Hisagi muttered.

"My right hand bears the pale daffodil of night," Hitsugaya said, taking up the chant. A shared kido was always more difficult; they had to balance, to channel the flow of their reiatsu evenly, or the incantation would simply fizzle out or explode in their faces. Or something of that sort.

"Blood and iron, ivory tower upon the sea." Now, Hisagi was straining. This kido took a prodigious amount of reiatsu to be cast, almost captain-level, and Hitsugaya knew that Hisagi was almost there. Almost, but not yet.

"The stone king watches and laughs and suffers the stars."

"Howling demon of the south, my sword cuts the thousand-fold knots."

"The four guardians hold the centre," Hitsugaya whipped out Hyorinmaru and plunged the blade, tip-first, into the slot in the floor meant for the blade. The air around him burned with cold, a nimbus of frostbitten white formed around him, and then power was taken from him, drawn down along the blade into the incantation. He knew that on the opposite side of the door, Hisagi had done the same. "Bind!" he rapped out. At the same time, Hisagi had cried out, "Unbind!"

Their mingled reiatsu flared a cold aquamarine, more blue than green, really, and then the corridor went dark again. Hitsugaya was aware of his heart, beating a little faster than normal, and the harsh sound of his breathing. If this ritual had taken a good deal out of him, he could only imagine how tired Hisagi must be. Nevertheless, he removed his palm from the indentation, sheathed Hyorinmaru and tried to straighten up his posture. He gave Hisagi a moment, and then tried the door.

It slid open, at his touch, combined with his reiatsu. He walked down the corridor, past the second door, and then the third. He thought wryly that it was probably a good thing he didn't have to repeat the incantation a second and then a third time. It'd taken more out of him than he had expected, but perhaps this was the effect of so much sekkiseki nearby.

He'd sheathed Hyorinmaru bloody. Hitsugaya tried not to think how _how much cleaning_ he was going to have to do after this was over.

The last door opened before him, and he strode into the vault itself. The carrying case was already there; they'd made the necessary preparations the day before. He picked up the polished wooden box, carefully opened it. There was a groove in the dark green silk lining of the box, specifically meant for the King's Seal. He lifted it from its place on the block of stone, and then slipped it into place in the carrying case.

The Seal snapped into place. The padding was supposed to protect it, though Hitsugaya wasn't about to put it to the test. He did up the clasps again, and then shifted his grip on the box so he was carrying it one-handed. He sealed the doors as he passed them, one after another. Hisagi waited in the corridor outside; he had not allowed himself to relax from a position of parade rest. Hitsugaya sealed the final door, listening to it grind shut with a sound that spoke of finality. Hisagi placed his palm against the indentation for a moment. Testing it.

The door no longer responded, even to his reiatsu.

Shifting his grip on the carrying case, so he was carrying it in both hands, Hitsugaya said, "Let's go."

Hisagi nodded, and gestured in the direction they'd come. He led the way out of the compound. Hitsugaya focused on the polished, rich wood of the box, the inlaid carvings. For a moment, in his mind, the long corridors were running with blood.

* * *

The rest of the ceremony went as planned. They emerged from the compound to the square outside, to the roar of anticipation from some of the rowdier elements of the crowd. They knew what was coming next.

Hitsugaya stopped right before the building; Hisagi walked on. He pivoted on his heel. Positions reversed, they now stood, facing each other. Matsumoto and Hisagi's third seat rejoined them. He handed the Seal in its carrying case to her, and then exchanged the series of formal bows with Hisagi.

He barked the order, and his squads shifted from parade rest to attention. The squads of the Ninth Division did the same, after Hisagi gave the command, and then formed lines. They drew swords for a moment, blades glittering in the sun, and held them upright in salute as the men of the Ninth streamed outwards, from their positions at the front of the Central Forty-Six compound, and into the plaza.

Only then did the shinigami of the Tenth Division, formation neat after days of drills in the training yards of the Division, take their places on guard right before the looming building of Central Forty-Six. They grounded the tips of their swords and stood; a variant of parade rest.

Now came the part that most people had come to see; the ceremonial release. Though those were mostly performed by Captains solely within affairs organised by the Gotei Thirteen, this was something that many within the Seireitei would not have had a chance to see. There were rumours, Hitsugaya knew. Always rumours. He drew Hyorinmaru from his sheath in a whisper-quick snap-draw, flicked the blade to the side, and then brought it up before him.

" _Soten ni zase,"_ he said, loudly enough for everyone in the area to hear, "Hyorinmaru!"

The gathering clouds darkened the sky, as the weather took a turn for the worse. The temperature of the surroundings had dropped, Hitsugaya knew, and while he'd never enjoyed the overdone pomp of these kinds of occasions, he also trusted to his hard-won control of Hyorinmaru's Tenso Jurin ability. While he'd argued against releasing Hyorinmaru lightly, tradition could not be fought, not in this case.

Ceremonial releases were different from combat. He brought his blade up, so that all could see the dragon of glacial ice winding around the zanpakuto. The dragon's movement sent little crystals of ice flaking off to the ground; Hitsugaya felt the bleeding of his hand slow to a trickle, and then nothing at all.

A quick impression, he thought. Keep it elegant. A flick of his zanpakuto blade sent the dragon arching up into the sky, and then plunging downwards, faster than an arrow, dissolving at the last moment into tiny flakes of ice.

He heard murmurs of appreciation; some were bending down to pick up the small pieces of ice as he sheathed Hyorinmaru again. Matsumoto gave the order to depart. A symbolic two squads would remain for the rest of the day, visibly on duty at the entrance to the Central Forty-Six compound. The rest of the squads would escort the King's Seal on its journey around Soul Society, ending, at sundown, at the Tenth Division barracks.

As his Lieutenant, Matsumoto would have to carry the Seal for most of the way. He could have exempted himself as Captain, now that his role in this was finished. They didn't need him with the others during the march itself, but this was one thing he would do nonetheless. Being a Captain, Hitsugaya thought, wasn't so much about leading and doing things your men were doing. It was about knowing when to join them, and when to keep your distance.

A leader who dirtied his hands too much became one of his men, and he was only too aware of his relative youth and his lack of height. He needed the respect that a carefully-maintained distance brought.

Still, in this, he was going to take his duties seriously.

He assumed his position at the head of the first squad as they filed out of the square, and onto the Seireitei's streets.

* * *

That evening, after the weary Tenth Division had filed back into the Division's assembly courtyard, Hitsugaya commended his men for the hard work they had put in, and gave them the next day off. The tired shouts of approval and happiness made the decision worth it. Then, with Matsumoto, they delivered the King's Seal into the high-security area of the division offices, and sealed it away with a rotating guard of two seated officers on the Seal.

Matsumoto hadn't asked him about what had happened earlier; she'd probably forgotten about it, in the exhausting march that had followed. And he knew she was tired; it was in her eyes, her posture, and how she didn't even talk about finding some friends to drink sake with. Hitsugaya himself was bone-weary, but forced himself to sit on his futon and clean Hyorinmaru _properly_. He also bandaged and cleaned the cut on his palm, attending to the wound as he had been taught to.

He'd barely folded and set his haori aside, before he fell asleep.

* * *

He was woken up after what felt like two hours later. His mind still fogged with sleep, Hitsugaya managed, "What is it?" He sat up, rubbing blearily at his eyes.

"Captain Hitsugaya," the shinigami said. It was Hisagi, accompanied by Kira. Hitsugaya managed as much dignity as he could in rumpled clothing, and mostly half-asleep with two shinigami lieutenants towering over him.

Something nagged him about the way they were standing. And then it struck him in the next moment, in a flash of insight.

They were unsettled, he realised. He didn't know them enough to tell much of their emotions in their reiatsu, but they were disturbed enough that it was leaking through, nonetheless. More importantly, it was the way they stood, close enough to defend each other, angled so that they wouldn't catch each other on the draw.

Carefully, and more awake now, Hitsugaya said, "What can I do for you, lieutenants?"

"You are requested to come with us and cooperate in an investigation," Hisagi finally said. His disquiet leaked through in his reiatsu, and in his eyes. His expression was otherwise grim.

"And what is the investigation about?" Hitsugaya asked, rising. He reached to throw on his haori and then made to take Hyorinmaru from his place on the weapons stand. With his back turned to them, he heard the rasp of a sword sliding from its sheath. "What is the meaning of this, Lieutenant?" he demanded.

"I am sorry, Hitsugaya-taicho," Kira said. "You are to surrender your zanpakuto."

" _What?"_ he wasn't the only one who said it; someone else spoke at the same time. Her hair in a mess, and her shihakusho half-done, it was apparent Matsumoto had just been woken up. She stood in the doorway of his room, Haineko drawn and in her hand. The tip of the blade was pointing directly at Kira, who had drawn his own zanpakuto. Her eyes were a furious, stormy grey as she glared at both Kira and Hisagi. She continued, "What is going on here?"

Hisagi sighed, took a deep breath. "Kahei Ichiro was found dead in his rooms tonight. Pierced through by a sword of ice. The reiatsu matches Hitsugaya-taicho's. By my authority as acting-Captain of the Ninth Division, we are asking you to come with us to cooperate in the investigation."

Matsumoto's hand was at her mouth, barely hiding her shock. Hitsugaya drew in a long breath, felt as though that sword of ice was piercing his own heart. Kahei Ichiro was dead. He remembered the man, the headmaster of the Academy. Kahei had taken him in, albeit at the Captain-Commander's sponsorship. And Kahei had taught him; he'd been one of the few supporters a young boy from Rukongai who was too clever for his own good had, in a world of nobles and politics.

"Matsumoto," he said.

" _No_ ," she said, and now the tip of Haineko was pointed at him, almost like an accusation.

"Put away your zanpakuto," he said, his voice as cold and utterly uncompromising, like the ice he wielded. She hesitated. "That's an order, Lieutenant Matsumoto. I leave you in charge of the Tenth Division, and the transfer ceremony." His tone was brisk, routine even.

Deliberately, he picked up Hyorinmaru. He said, to Kira, "I will not go unarmed in the Seireitei. I am a Captain of Soul Society, and I will not surrender my zanpakuto until I am formally under arrest and suspended from my position." A very frosty smile. "You should know that, of course." However skilled, Kira and Hisagi were still lieutenants. They would know he might be exhausted, but they would not count on it. No less than actual, full Captains were sent to arrest Captains. Which meant that this wasn't an arrest.

He heard the sound of one sword slipping back into its sheath. Only then did Matsumoto sheath Haineko. "Taicho," Matsumoto said, and he knew she didn't understand. He slung Hyorinmaru over his shoulder, and secured the fastening clip.

"Allow me to talk to my subordinate," he said. "I have final orders to give." Kira glanced at Hisagi, who nodded.

"Make it quick," he said. "Hitsugaya-taicho. Matsumoto-fukutaicho." He moved out the door; Kira followed a moment later. They weren't bothering to hide their reiatsu as a courtesy. So Hitsugaya knew when they were at a polite distance. He turned to Matsumoto.

" _Think_ , Matsumoto," he said quietly. "They're here because they're asking for my cooperation. Not arresting me. Kahei Ichiro was no longer an active member of the Gotei Thirteen when he died. The headmaster of the Academy is not directly affiliated with the Gotei Thirteen. And he was a noble. Central Forty-Six will not be happy about this."

" _No one_ will be happy about this," Matsumoto said, and her tone made it clear she hadn't been, either. "It's a set-up, Taicho. I don't like this. And that makes it our jurisdiction."

"That's why I need to go with them. Central Forty-Six will take the case out of Gotei Thirteen hands. And…" he hesitated, trying to think of how to put his point across in a way that didn't speak of ugly _treason_. "Central Forty-Six," he said again. Quietly. Wondering if the name, the way he spoke it this time sufficed. "If not before a council of nobles. This will turn into politics. They're trying to shield me from the storm before it starts. By beginning a Gotei Thirteen in investigation, and asking me to cooperate with the investigation."

She nodded curtly. Matsumoto didn't have to _like_ it, Hitsugaya thought, to appreciate it was necessary. That it was only the first move in the political firestorm that a single death had unleashed. Kahei Ichiro was— _had been_ —he corrected, with a flicker of pain, the son of a moderately high-ranking noble family. It explained how he had come to his position of power as headmaster of the Academy. And the man had been talented, of course. He'd made many connections during his own time in the Gotei Thirteen.

Old mistakes, coming back to haunt them.

"But you are right," he conceded quietly. "This is our jurisdiction. I don't think you will be allowed to officially investigate this," he added. "Get Sone to help you run the Division."

"Of course, Taicho," she said, her tone implying that he should really stop trying to tell her how to do her job. Hitsugaya recognised that flicker of irritation, as well as the fact that it was not all directed at him, and stepped back gracefully.

"Then I leave you to it," he said. Headed for the door. She would need to weather the inevitable storm that would descend in the morning when word that the Captain of the Tenth Division had been taken in for questioning pertaining to a murder spread around the Seireitei.

"Taicho?"

"Hmm?"

"Be careful," she said. He didn't reply, didn't turn back, as he walked out the door, and into a wilderness of tigers.


	3. A Wilderness of Tigers

**III. A WILDERNESS OF TIGERS**

The cup of freshly-made green tea steadied him. He breathed in the scent of the tea, held the ochre pottery cup tightly so his hands wouldn't tremble. Whether it was from lingering exhaustion, or a slow-building rage, Hitsugaya could not say.

He focused on the tea. His hands steadied. He wondered if Hisagi had noticed. Probably. He would have, if he had been in Hisagi's place.

He said, "Ask your questions." It wasn't, Hitsugaya thought, as if he had a choice. He'd never quite had one, not since the day he'd sought out Kyoraku Shunsui and asked for a place at the Academy because Matsumoto had only discovered him once the term had begun.

It had been late autumn, then.

He'd never quite liked autumn, since he'd become a shinigami.

"Hitsugaya-taicho, where were you on the night Kahei Ichiro died?"

Hitsugaya tried to fight off his impatience. They both knew this game; the questions, the techniques of the questioner. Yet he was not unappreciative of the fact that it was only working with the Gotei Thirteen that kept him from being thrown to the mercy of the nobles when the inevitable fuss rose. Or, for that matter, to the mercy of Central Forty-Six.

He knew far more than any man should about the mercy of Central Forty-Six. "In my rooms," Hitsugaya said. "Sleeping."

"Can anyone confirm that?"

Hitsugaya gave a cold shrug. "No. Private access to a Captain's quarters is not common in the Division." He set down the cup of tea on the table. "I dismissed the squads at sundown, when we returned to the Division. After that, I spoke briefly with Lieutenant Matsumoto, and we saw to the safe deposition of the King's Seal. Then I headed back to my rooms, cleaned Hyorinmaru and went to sleep."

"You cleaned your zanpakuto."

Hitsugaya sighed. "We performed the changing of the guard ceremony, after all."

Hisagi nodded. Kira wrote, his handwriting neat despite his speed. "So you went to sleep. And then?"

"And then I was woken up," Hitsugaya said. "By you and Kira."

"Can anyone in your Division confirm that you remained in your quarters?" The same question, asked differently.

"We'd posted our usual sentries at the entrance of the Division and around it," Hitsugaya said. "Though doubtless you know sentries can be avoided."

"How did you know Kahei Ichiro?"

"How else? That man's been the headmaster of the Academy for a very long time." Hitsugaya sipped at his tea. "He taught me." He'd taken a young boy under his wing, Hitsugaya thought, and taught him about politics and power. He wondered if Kira remembered, if the man even knew. They'd been contemporaries at the Academy, of a sort. "We didn't keep in touch, after I graduated." It was a lie, just a small one, barely even a lie. They had met on one occasion. Just once. Barely worth talking about.

"Any conflicts with Kahei Ichiro?"

"No." Hitsugaya gauged the moment, before speaking up. "When is the funeral?"

"After tomorrow, Hitsugaya-taicho," Kira said, as he paused in his note-taking. "Captain Unohana is currently performing an inspection of the body."

"I would like to attend the funeral."

"My apologies, Hitsugaya-taicho," Hisagi said. "It would be neither possible nor wise to do so."

Hitsugaya frowned. He'd thought so. Doing so would simply expose him to the people whom they were trying to take him away from. But the real killer was lurking out there somewhere, and right now, Hitsugaya wanted very much to slip a real ice-type zanpakuto through that person's heart. Instead, he said, "I see. Please convey my condolences. I respected him."

"It will be done," Kira promised.

* * *

They respected him enough to leave him Hyorinmaru, and he was not held in the holding cells of the Ninth Division, but a small room, well-appointed, with a futon, a writing desk, and a few other articles of furniture. The window, Hitsugaya discovered, was sealed. A pretty prison, but still a prison.

He wondered how long that would take to change. The shock of learning about Kahei's death was already beginning to wear off, and now Hitsugaya forced away the lingering sadness and turned his mind to the problem of the murder.

Reiatsu was unique to the shinigami who produced it, a combination of their spiritual energy and the tight focus described by their will. That would be the damning finger, the single thing that didn't make sense in this. He didn't doubt that Hisagi could recognise his reiatsu when he saw it, particularly since they'd so recently worked together during the transfer ceremony. In fact, Hitsugaya thought, he'd neatly allowed most of the Seireitei to get a close look at his reiatsu during the ceremonial release. There was no dodging the fact it was his reiatsu. But how had it gotten there?

There was someone, he thought. Someone once who could have done that.

He was dead now, and nothing changed. Blood on stone and dry autumn grass.

Hitsugaya _hated_ the autumn.

He needed a closer look at the files of the investigation, but he wouldn't be allowed access to them. Matsumoto might, but as a suspect, he was never going to be able to get a look at them. Despite the politeness he was currently being offered, Hitsugaya knew that the fact his reiatsu was at the scene of the death meant that he was going to be the only viable suspect. And if Central Forty-Six attempted to rush a decision…

How was not the only question. _Why_? Why his reiatsu? And the more Hitsugaya thought of it, the more it stank. He sat cross-legged on the floor, the naked blade of his zanpakuto laid out across his lap. Jinzen, they called this technique. Entering a meditative state in which a shinigami could commune with his zanpakuto. Sitting like this, his thoughts floating free like bobbing leaves on water, he considered the facts he did know time and again.

The sword of ice. It stood out starkly in his mind, even as he tried to imagine the scene that Hisagi had only briefly described. Why a sword of ice? Too flashy, Hitsugaya thought. It had been a cool autumn night, and the effects of Tenso Jurin had lingered, but even with these factors, the ice hadn't melted and that meant it hadn't been shaped ice. It'd been ice brought into existence through the use of kido, or reiatsu.

It was almost overdone, the more he thought about it. As if whoever had killed Kahei Ichiro had felt the need to make _sure_ it was Hitsugaya Toshiro who was held to account for the crime. And that meant killing the victim with a weapon that Captain Hitsugaya Toshiro of the Tenth Division was famous for wielding. Had he not, after all, only just displayed his mastery of that element earlier during the ceremonial release of his zanpakuto? Was Hyorinmaru not the strongest ice-type zanpakuto in Soul Society?

Someone had wanted Hitsugaya framed. And why?

And then Hitsugaya realised there was a more pressing issue at hand. The person who had killed Kahei was still out there. And if that person wanted Hitsugaya framed, he would have more than a single opportunity to drive the nail into the coffin.

There would be more deaths.

Suddenly, Hitsugaya realised he had to get out of the Ninth Division. Fast.

* * *

"Matsumoto-san, I really do not think—"

"He is my Captain, Kira," Matsumoto said, hands planted on her hips, meeting him stare for stare. "If he's facing charges, I deserve the right to know."

Kira exhaled, his body tight. She noticed the strain in the way his tall frame seemed too compressed in the small chair. It wasn't fair to do this to him, but Matsumoto didn't care as she leaned forward, across the table, and almost knocked the mostly-empty bottle of sake over.

"Tell me you wouldn't want to know if Gin was the one facing charges," she said quietly.

Kira's shoulders were tight; he seemed to shrink back into himself. His eyes narrowed. "Don't bring Captain Ichimaru into this," he retorted, just as quietly. "The charges your Captain faces have nothing to do with him."

"You know where a Lieutenant's place is," Matsumoto stated, and he did know. They'd both placed themselves at opposite ends of crossed swords, damned friendships out of loyalty to their Captain. Being a Lieutenant demanded that, she thought. And although Hitsugaya had never _demanded_ it of her, she couldn't have had let him down.

Kira's eyes flicked to the side and back. She felt a faint strain of regret for having had to push him, where the scars ran deep. But he unbent. "So be it," he uttered. "Abarai-san stumbled across a body at the Eastern Wall, late in the evening. He thought it was a drunk, at first, or some recruit trying something. Then he saw the trail of blood and realised that it was a body, pierced through with a zanpakuto and a sword of ice. He recognised the reiatsu of the ice sword, and the traces at the scene. It was Hitsugaya-taicho's, faint and barely detectable but still there. He took down the body and called a response team from the Ninth and Fourth Divisions."

"And you came with Shuuhei."

"We were drinking," Kira said, and in that moment, she saw the ghost of the man he could be, when the weight of his duties wasn't pressing down on his shoulders. She'd heard from Renji that Kira had been…different, before he'd become a Lieutenant. She didn't know how true that was. "Finding a few bars, when the message came. We left immediately. I was able to identify the body as Kahei-shihan's, and we were able to confirm that it was Hitsugaya-taicho's reiatsu at the scene of the crime. That was the point at which as acting-Captain of the Ninth Division, Hisagi-san decided to ask Hitsugaya-taicho to cooperate in this matter. As acting-Captain of the Third Division, I seconded his decision."

Making it a joint order, Matsumoto knew. She said, "What happened to the sword of ice?"

"Taken to the Twelfth Division for investigation," Kira said. "But it was made from his reiatsu. There was no doubt about it."

"Show me," Matsumoto said.

"I cannot," at her expression, Kira added, "Matsumoto-san, this investigation is being conducted by Hisagi-san. I cannot get you access to the sword because it is now with Kurotsuchi-taicho."

"If anyone knows his reiatsu," Matsumoto replied, "I do. I don't believe it was his." Didn't believe. Couldn't believe. What had he said? 'Go to bed, Matsumoto.' He'd sounded weary, then. He'd been out of sorts the whole afternoon; Sone had confided to her that he'd seen the Captain performing sword exercises in the private courtyard before dawn. She knew he only did that when something upset him, when he felt he needed to regain some sort of inner balance that had been disturbed.

"Hisagi-san recognised his reiatsu," Kira told her. "They'd spent the afternoon performing a joint kido incantation. He mentioned he could recognise Hitsugaya-taicho's reiatsu, and it was in that blade. Considering that the Eastern Wall is relatively close to the Tenth Division, all factors seemed to point towards Hitsugaya-taicho."

"It's too neat," Matsumoto said, frustrated. "Kira, you must see that."

"I don't know," Kira said. "I know that as his Lieutenant, you…" he looked down at his hands. "Must not think him guilty." His shoulders slumped.

"I know he didn't do it," Matsumoto corrected him. "If he wanted to kill a man, he wouldn't…" she thought about the rage in his eyes. The night he fought Gin, she'd seen the end of the world, a slow icy death in those eyes. She'd moved between them, not just because Hitsugaya was her Captain, not just because Gin was…Gin, but because she'd never seen him furious enough to let the world burn, and she knew that in that crossing of blades, only one of the two men would have walked away from it.

Even though she'd ended up choosing her Captain—it hadn't been much of a choice, in the end—she hadn't wanted to make the choice back then, except she realised she'd made it when she stepped between Gin's blade and an unconscious Hinamori.

He'd told her later that the rage had been a lie. She hadn't quite believed him; the anger she saw that day had been too deep to be real.

"Matsumoto-san?"

"He wouldn't leave him there," Matsumoto said. "Killing a man, and then taking him all the way here to the Eastern Wall, to leave him skewered by his own zanpakuto and a sword of ice? Someone wants attention drawn to this."

Could he kill a man, in such a cold way? He'd been ready to kill Gin, she thought. And Aizen. And she reflected that they were both alike; she could never tell when Gin was lying. Sometimes, her Captain retreated away, unreadable; when he was in those moods, she couldn't tell if he lied to her.

"Well," Kira said, with uncharacteristic bitterness, "If attention is what he wants, he's got it."

Matsumoto would have called for more sake, but she was aware of the fact her Captain was in custody. _Someone's going out of his way to frame him_ , she thought. And she looked at the sake bottle and felt any mood for drinking leave her. "Come on, Kira," she said, forcing cheer in her voice. "Let's go. The night's still young."

* * *

Part of Hitsugaya had known who it was going to be when the shinigami from the Ninth Division who was evidently his jailer had informed him, voice trembling, that he had a visitor. He hadn't quite _expected_ who it had been, but in retrospect, there was only one person who would have come, at this point in time.

"Narumi," he said, expressionless.

"Hitsugaya," Narumi Arata said. The years hadn't changed him at all; dark hair, immaculately parted, slightly wavy. Midnight blue eyes that were always mocking, always condescending. He was tall and lean, a swordman's build, though light around the shoulders. He did not wear a shihakusho, though Hitsugaya remembered the zanpakuto that was slipped into his obi. The hilt-wrappings were a dull, sullen red, threaded through with black. "I hear it's Captain Hitsugaya these days. For now."

He breathed the impression of smouldering coals and sullen embers; soft, wet ash in the palm of his hand. No, he thought, some things never changed.

A long, curving scar traced Narumi's face, from the corner of his left temple, streaking down to bisect his lips at the corner of his mouth. He remembered that scar, though it had not been so pale when he'd last seen it, more an angry red. He'd given Narumi that scar, in a formal duel. The first time he'd drawn blood with Hyorinmaru.

Narumi's clothing was elegant; they were similar to the robes of a shinigami, but in dark maroons and blacks and rustled dramatically as he moved. "I could have you up on insubordination towards a Captain. However, I hear you left the Gotei Thirteen," Hitsugaya countered. "Clearly, some things seem to be true."

He found his gaze drawn once more by the scar as Narumi smirked; the corners of his mouth twisted. "No," Narumi said softly, "I was granted official leave, to do my duty as the head of the Narumi family. As you can see, I haven't yet returned to my duties in the Seventh Division."

Hitsugaya smiled. "And I'd wondered why Komamura seemed rather unburdened of late."

"Possibly because the Ninth Division has taken a killer into custody," Narumi countered. He took a step forward, still blocking the door. Hitsugaya wondered if the shinigami posted outside had his ear pressed to it. "I heard about Kahei-shihan's death. A tragedy, of course. But we know that Rukongai mud clings, doesn't it? Did I ever tell you of what I saw when I was on patrol in the eightieth district of Rukongai?"

"Funny," Hitsugaya said coldly, "I don't seem to remember needing to reminisce about old times. I'm sure you can share your observations about Zaraki with Zaraki-taicho. He will no doubt find you…amusing."

"It's an interesting thing," Narumi continued, ignoring Hitsugaya. "We found two men drowned in a sinkhole. This isn't uncommon, of course. The terrain in the wilderness of Zaraki is inhospitable, at best. What caught our attention was the way the two men had died. One of them was standing on the shoulders of the other. In his panic to escape, he had pushed his fellow survivor…ground him down into the mud, to no avail. They both died that way. If they'd kept their heads and worked together to brave the rock face…"

"If that's all you've come to say," Hitsugaya said, and it didn't take him very much effort to sound utterly bored, "I believe I'll inform the warden that you are about to be on your way now."

Narumi smiled. "I've been waiting for this moment," he said, all bared teeth. "You have _no_ idea how long." There was an uncomfortable amount of insanity in his dark blue eyes, Hitsugaya thought, as they stared at each other. "The nobles are furious. And of _course_ , who else is to blame but a murdering Rukongai dog who should never have been permitted the haori?"

Hitsugaya struck him. Narumi's reflexes were not fast enough to catch the blow, and he staggered backwards. A line of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

"Clearly," Hitsugaya observed clinically, "You are overwrought by Kahei-shihan's death. This is understandable, as he was a good man. Accuse me baselessly of his murder one more time or dishonour the integrity of the Gotei Thirteen and the Captain's haori, and I will challenge you to a formal duel."

Narumi's eyes narrowed, burning with a hatred he had barely kept hidden, and now that it was revealed once more, Hitsugaya almost took a step back. Almost. But he was a Captain of Soul Society now, and he knew all about hatred, and about war. Instead, he smirked.

"Lay a hand to me once more," Narumi said, "And I will have you before the nobles' council." His smile was savage; all sharp fangs and a flicker of flame. "They are clamouring for blood since the noble headmaster was found on the Eastern Wall, run through by his own zanpakuto and a sword of ice." He almost sneered. "How melodramatic of you."

Hitsugaya blinked.

Narumi noticed it, and said, "Pretence won't save you. They found him, and with your reiatsu clinging all over the scene— _careless_ , don't you think?—another noble killed by Rukongai trash in the Gotei Thirteen. And so soon after Sosuke massacred all of Central Forty-Six. Do you really think—"

In a swift movement, Hitsugaya reached out and slammed Narumi against the wall with a shoulder-charge. Reiatsu flared; the rusty red of Narumi's, and the silver-shot-blue of Hitsugaya's. For all his native talent back at the Academy, Narumi hadn't improved, while Hitsugaya had become a Captain and learned and was mastering his bankai. There was a surprising amount of contest for a few moments, Narumi's will turning his reiatsu to concrete but Hitsugaya broke it, raising his reiatsu to the point that sweat dripped from Narumi's forehead, and the man ground his teeth together.

Frost spread out from his touch; he had Narumi by the throat in a grip of steel. "No," Hitsugaya said, in that cold, cold voice. "Clearly you aren't thinking." He dreamed, some nights. Of the butchery he'd seen in Central Forty-Six. Months later, he still dreamed. For the first time, he saw fear in Narumi's eyes.

Fear of who he'd become. Or fear of what was in his eyes. He didn't know anymore, only felt the slow, frigid anger of a cold dragon fill him.

"You have exhausted my patience, Narumi," Hitsugaya continued. "I have neither the time nor the inclination to play childish games with you. Answer me now: _did you kill Kahei?"_

Narumi's mouth twisted; he worked up enough moisture to sneer, "Who wants to know?" Clinically, Hitsugaya applied more pressure to Narumi's throat.

"You aren't paying attention. You are still a member of the Gotei Thirteen, even on leave. By my authority as a Captain of Soul Society, I command you to tell me _. Did you kill Kahei?_ "

"No," Narumi spat, at last. Just a single word. Hitsugaya relaxed his grip and let the noble fall to the ground.

"Get out," he said, disgusted.

Narumi got to his feet. "This is not over, Hitsugaya," he snarled. "It will _never_ be over."

"It's Hitsugaya- _taicho_ to you," Hitsugaya said. "Go before I have you punished for insubordination and behaviour unbefitting a member of the Gotei Thirteen."

The door slammed behind Narumi Arata. Hitsugaya took a deep breath, the tension leaving him, all at once. He'd been tighter than a stretched rope. So much, he thought wryly, for not antagonising the nobles. He'd done and kicked the wasps' nest, but Narumi Arata and his vendetta was not on Hitsugaya's list of concerns. The killer was. It had been a frame job, Hitsugaya had concluded. It made no sense otherwise.

But Narumi had in fact given Hitsugaya something of value. Killed and found on the Eastern Wall, Narumi had said. Run through by his own zanpakuto and a sword of ice. But Hisagi had said that Kahei had been found dead in his own rooms, killed by the ice sword. He thought about that. It wasn't an uncommon trick; to withhold some detail of the killing in the hope that the killer would slip up and reveal some detail of it. But Narumi Arata was influential enough that he might have had access to those details, and Hitsugaya was certain that in that moment of fear, when he had Narumi Arata pinned by the throat and at his mercy, it was clear enough that the man had been honest: he had _not_ killed Kahei.

But whoever had done so had gone through a careful amount of planning to make a spectacle. Kahei had to have been killed elsewhere, and then brought to the Eastern Wall. The Eastern Wall, which was conveniently near the Tenth Division, and bore the spectre of Aizen's feigned death.

Perhaps Kahei had been killed by his own zanpakuto. What was clear was that the sword of ice was meant to be the hint that pointed directly at Hitsugaya.

Funny, Hitsugaya thought, how many people seemed to be trying to frame him. Aizen had tried the same trick, and had managed to play him and Hinamori against each other.

He wondered if it was possible to have more pleasant visitors and stuck his head out of the door for a moment.

"Hi…Hitsugaya-taicho!" the shinigami on duty stammered. Hitsugaya frowned, and then realised the hapless man must have sensed his released reiatsu.

"If I am allowed visitors," he said carefully, "Could you send a hell butterfly to Unohana and ask her if she would please pay me a visit?"

"I…I can ask, sir," the shinigami said, and ran out, down the corridor, as if the assembled Hollows of Hueco Mundo were at his heels.

There it was, Hitsugaya thought. Now it was time to start fishing and to see if anything was going to bite. He stared down at the neat scab on his palm, and was faintly surprised to see it had broken and was bleeding through.

* * *

Hitsugaya had been surprised to sense the familiar, soothing presence of Unohana Retsu the moment she walked down the corridor. It had been a shot in the dark, nothing more, and he had suspected that Unohana would have been too busy to come by, or she would not have been allowed to.

The door opened a moment later. He stood. "Unohana," he greeted.

"Hitsugaya-taicho," she replied, with that patient smile she directed towards everyone. "I received a rather curious message from a rather terrified shinigami."

Hitsugaya sighed. "I asked him to use a hell butterfly," he growled. He _almost_ smiled. There was something about Unohana's reiatsu that was clean, like deep wellsprings of water, vast like a calm ocean, and it swept away the last vestiges of heat and ash and venom from his exchange with Narumi Arata.

"Well," Unohana said, "You are unhurt?" She glanced pointedly at his palm. It had been a shallow cut, and so apart from cleaning it out after the ceremony, Hitsugaya hadn't bothered to apply healing kido to it.

He nodded. "But I have questions."

She glanced at the door. "I rather thought you might." Hitsugaya took the hint, and moved further away from the door. "I spoke," Unohana said, casually, "to Matsumoto-fukutaicho. While it is not uncommon for lieutenants to defend their captains, she was fiercely convinced of your innocence, and was defending it."

"That's why I'm cooperating," Hitsugaya said. "I did not kill Kahei, and I had no reason to."

Unohana laid a finger to her lip. "Perhaps," she said, after a while of silence. "I do not like to have reason to think badly of a person."

He stared at her, willing her to believe him.

Gently, Unohana said, "I came, Hitsugaya-taicho. What are your questions?"

"Kahei. Where was he found?"

"The Eastern Wall," she said, without hesitation. "Speared through the heart by his own zanpakuto, and a sword of ice. The interesting thing was that it was the blow of his own zanpakuto that killed him. There was damage to his thumb and wrist, so he likely fought for control of his blade at some point. There was more bleeding around the entry wound caused by his zanpakuto, as compared to the one caused by the sword which hardly caused any bleeding at all. My suspicion would be that he was killed first before the blade of ice was inserted into the body."

Interesting, because it confirmed his suspicions. The sword of ice had been the final flourish, a calling card meant to point the finger of blame directly at him. And yet…there was something…he wasn't sure _what_. Hitsugaya frowned, and set the half-formed thought aside for now.

"How much bleeding?"

She understood his question. "Not very much. The killing blow was struck elsewhere. Kahei died in that place, and then his body was carried and pinned to the Eastern Wall. However, the entry wound was in his back."

"He trusted his attacker," Hitsugaya guessed. "Enough to turn his back on him. Or he was taken by surprise, and fought back when the initial blow did not kill. How many wounds in total?"

"Two. He was wounded twice, presumably when the killer struck the actual blow from behind, and then when he withdrew Kahei's zanpakuto and reversed the direction of the blade through the killing wound. The second wound was caused after death, by the ice sword."

"Any estimate on the time of death?"

Unohana said, "Rigor mortis had set in. With that consideration, and the consistency of the blood, he could have been killed at anytime past sundown to during the night itself. However, I judge that he was dead for at least four to six hours before he was found."

Hitsugaya sighed. That was a long shot, he knew. The earlier Kahei had been killed, the better for him, as he had been involved in the changing of the guard ceremony. However, it seemed that was a dead line of inquiry now. "Thank you, Unohana," he said.

"Hitsugaya-taicho." He gazed up, waiting. "I, too, have a question for you."

"Yes," he said.

"Do you still dream of the Central Forty-Six chambers?"

He looked down, at his hands. Blood welled up from the broken scab, feathered out along the neat lines of his palm. "Often enough," Hitsugaya said, quietly.


	4. Thrown to the Wolves

**IV. THROWN TO THE WOLVES**

A day later, Hyorinmaru was taken from him and surrendered into the custody of Acting-Captain Hisagi of the Ninth Division. Hitsugaya himself was moved from his modest but comfortable room into a holding cell in the Ninth Division.

Giving up Hyorinmaru felt like a violation. Hitsugaya felt the pang in his heart as he watched Hisagi's fingers close around his zanpakuto. Still, the man accepted his zanpakuto gravely, and carried the blade with the respect recquired and the assurance it would be returned to him in due course.

"If you are able to tell me," Hitsugaya said, to Hisagi, "Why?"

Hisagi looked at him, expressionless, and said, "Narumi Arata turned up dead, after speaking to you. You were left unguarded in that period of time. The same traces of reiatsu were found at the crime scene. I am obliged to take you into formal custody now, Hitsugaya-taicho. Word has come in from Central 46 and has been confirmed by the Captain-Commander. You are to be relieved of duty."

* * *

Matsumoto was staring at a bottle of sake in the administrative office, and trying to get some paperwork done when Kira burst in through the door. "Kira?" she asked, startled, because he looked as agitated as she'd ever seen him. Something had happened, something that had broken the mask of reserve Kira was accustomed to wearing.

"Matsumoto-san," he said. "A second killing has occurred. The murder scene is still fresh."

She understood what he was telling her. "Take me there."

He nodded, and gestured for her to follow him. She picked up Haineko and belted on her zanpakuto. Someone, Matsumoto felt certain, was framing her Captain. It was her duty as his Lieutenant, not just to run his division as well as she could in his absence, but to see to proving his innocence in the matter.

They passed the seated officer offices, and Matsumoto called out for Kira to halt for a moment. "Sone!" Their third seat poked his head out of his cubicle a moment later.

"Matsumoto-fukutaicho?"

"I am leaving to attend to something with Lieutenant Kira," she said, clearly. "Please see to the division and the preparations for the rest of the transfer ceremony."

Without a Captain, her presence was critical, she knew, and she saw a flash of dismay on Sone's face. Their seated officers were capable, but with their Captain in custody, the Lieutenant was critical to maintaining division morale. Her job was to show them that the Tenth Division was capable of functioning, to give things a semblance of normalcy.

And her job was to watch her Captain's back, and she couldn't do that shut away in an office or talking to the men.

But Sone was a good officer, and he hid that flash of dismay almost as instantly as she'd seen it. "Understood, Matsumoto-fukutaicho," he said.

"Thank you!" she said cheerily, and grabbed him up into a hug, because the poor, overworked man needed it. She waved, and headed back out to join Kira, the forced cheer evaporating just as quickly as she'd put it on.

"Let's go."

* * *

What made things depressingly bad was that Narumi Arata had been killed in a courtyard in the Ninth Division. It looked like he hadn't successfully made it _out_ of the division, one of the Ninth Division officers at the scene explained. Her name was Ando Kenta, and like all the shinigami of the Ninth, she wore her shihakusho sleeveless. That revealed tight muscle, and her hair was cropped short to slightly above her earlobes.

Matsumoto couldn't hide her surprise at the name; Kenta was a male name. Ando grimanced. "Look," she said, "My father really wanted a boy, and when he had a girl, he decided to name me Kenta anyway. Can we get on with this?"

"Has the time of death been established?" Kira asked, pointedly taking the hint.

Ando shook her head. "The first responders from the Fourth Division have yet to arrive." Matsumoto _was_ surprised at that—as well as touched. Kira had left in a rush to bring her here as soon as the body had been discovered.

She realised what the knot in her stomach was; the moment she'd arrived at the scene, she'd recognised the icy traces of her Captain's reiatsu. Unmistakeable, familiar in its crispness, she felt the traces of Hyorinmaru, liberally swirling around the crime scene. As damning a sign of murder as anything could have been. She almost didn't find her voice. A flash of silver hair and pale blue eyes, so pale they were almost grey.

 _Gin_ …

She felt betrayed. And at the same time, she couldn't believe he had done it. She caught the sympathy in Kira's eyes, as he stepped forward. "Please explain to Matsumoto-fukutaicho what has happened here."

"Narumi fought," Matsumoto interrupted, trying to focus on the scene before her. His zanpakuto was drawn and in his hand; he had taken several slashing wounds to the torso, all caked with ice that glittered treacherously in the sunlight. His zanpakuto's edge was clean, which meant he had not managed to draw blood. He'd been outclassed. "How good was he?"

"Narumi Arata?" Ando snorted. "Ninth seat of the Seventh Division." Matsumoto frowned. Any single digit seated officer was a dangerous enough opponent, which meant that the killer was above ninth seat standard. Above even Kahei's standard, and that meant the killer was powerful and dangerously skilled. But anyone could have told that from the feel of the reiatsu that lingered here. The same sword of ice protruded from the dead man's chest, and now Matsumoto saw what had disturbed them so much about the killings.

It was identical to Hyorinmaru. She felt her hands close around freezing ice, even before she had been aware of taking the step forward. It was ice, of course; hard and it leeched the last bit of warmth from her fingers. The stylised wrappings were nothing more than details in the ice, but what sealed it was the four-pointed star that served as the tsuba, the guard of the blade.

It couldn't be.

Ando was saying something; Matsumoto forced herself to let go of the ice-blade, to ignore the similar blade that was sticking through her heart right now, to calmly say, "I'm sorry, Ando. I didn't catch what you were saying. Could you repeat it, please?"

Ando hardly blinked. She said, "I called up Narumi's service records from the Seventh Division. They were quick to arrive, and they had Narumi's Academy records as well. It seems that Narumi Arata was one of those highly-gifted students who appeared likely to make swift progression through the ranks."

Matsumoto and Kira exchanged glances.

Ando continued, "He graduated eleventh in his year. Of note was an incident recorded where he fought a formal duel against one of the youngest prodigies the Academy had ever seen."

Matsumoto felt the blade of ice return, lodged between her ribs. Ando had paused, waiting. "Who?" she forced herself to ask.

Ando's expression was very carefully set in one of neutrality. "Captain Hitsugaya Toshiro."

* * *

Matsumoto held onto her composure with nothing less than the discipline of a woman who held the second-highest rank in any division of the Gotei Thirteen. She could not allow herself to doubt her Captain. Not here.

She wandered the scene trying to take in anything that could be evidence. The Fourth Division officers soon arrived to take Narumi Arata's body back to their division for the autopsy, while the sole shinigami from the Twelfth had also arrived to take the sword for further analysis. They all saw her Lieutenant's armband with the insignia of the Tenth Division on it; they all gave her a respectful berth.

Narumi had fought. His zanpakuto had been drawn, and he had been overmatched, failing to draw any blood. He had been dispatched, or so it seemed, with relative ease. That sort of power disparity frightened Matsumoto.

As did how traces of her Captain's reiatsu had come to be here. It was a sunny morning, and the ice had not melted. It was not ordinary ice; it had been created by reiatsu, and she recognised the reiatsu the moment her fingers had closed around the hilt of the ice sword.

 _Taicho_ , she thought. He had been out of sorts on the morning of the transfer ceremony. He had brushed it off as if it had been nothing, but it hadn't. What was he keeping from her?

Something nagged at her; she didn't know what. She looked back at where the medics had thrown a white sheet over Narumi's corpse and was preparing to shift it onto a stretcher. The scene itself had been roped off, and shinigami were going over the scene, trying to find other pieces of evidence that they could use to put together how Narumi had died.

"Matsumoto-san," Kira said. He was standing before her, waiting. For what?

She found her voice again. "Something's not right," Matsumoto said. And then she understood _what_ it had been. "The blood. What happened to the blood?"

The slashes had killed Narumi, she was sure of it. But there was no spreading stain of blood on the stones of the courtyard. Wherever Narumi had fought his attacker, he had died there, and then he had been moved.

Kira frowned, and then bent to inspect the ground. "Ando-san," he called out. Ando jerked her head back from where she was conferring with some men, probably from the Ninth. "Has any blood been found?"

Ando shook her head. "Not here," she said, regretfully. "A few stains consistent with dripping blood, but he was not killed here."

"Where was he killed?" Matsumoto asked. It was the natural question that followed. She was seeing it now; even as the traces of her Captain's reiatsu sang to her senses. He was being held somewhere in the Ninth Division. The further from the Ninth Division barracks that Narumi Arata had been slain, the better it would go for her Captain.

Ando frowned. "We're still looking," she said. "I've sent a team to his family manor in order to investigate." That was right, Matsumoto thought. Kahei had been killed in his quarters at the Academy. She felt a faint pang of regret. He'd been a good man, though she hadn't known him all that well. Ando turned away, ordering investigating shinigami about. There was little left to do, Matsumoto thought, as she looked around the courtyard.

But something else caught Matsumoto's eye, and she bent down. A torn scrap of cloth, a sandy brown with fraying threads fluttered on the flagstones. She picked it up, and glanced at it. Non-descript, it looked as though it had been torn off from someone's clothing. Maybe a cloak. Narumi Arata had not been dressed in brown.

She pocketed it, quietly.

* * *

There was too much time to think, in his cell.

Hitsugaya assumed the cross-legged position of jinzen, even though he no longer had Hyorinmaru, and sifted through the thoughts that darted on the surface of his mind, then watched them settle like silt in a pond. It was a damning picture, in all, if only he could ask exactly _how_ he'd been supposed to have killed Narumi Arata, despite all their disagreements, while being locked away in a room in the Ninth Division. He rather suspected that the fact his reiatsu had been all over the scene of the crime had removed any doubts they must have had; they'd been more than happy to chalk the rest down to his reputed genius and cunning.

Ever since Aizen had killed the Central Forty-Six and used their authority to order the execution of Kuchiki Rukia, the Gotei Thirteen had taken an increased autonomy in governing their own affairs. Except that Hisagi had said that he'd been relieved of duty, and the Captain-Commander had confirmed it. _What,_ he thought, quite perplexed, _was Yamamoto up to?_ When Ichimaru had failed to kill Kurosaki Ichigo in their encounter at the Western Gate, he'd been called to account for it in front of the gathered council of Captains. Any member of the Gotei Thirteen was entitled to a military court-martial, and Captains were subject only to trial by their peers, which in this case meant an assembly of the Thirteen Captains, including the Captain-Commander among them.

He'd never seen that trial.

Someone, Hitsugaya thought uneasily, had it out for him. It was blindingly obvious from the start, when a display had been made out of Kahei and he had been killed in a manner that screamed that the killer had an affinity for ice. More importantly, traces of his reiatsu had been found at the killing scene, and Hitsugaya didn't know what to make of that. Reiatsu could be hard to pin down, and it often took intense emotion and a powerful source of spiritual energy to cause reiatsu traces to linger in a place.

He'd have had to have fought Kahei, for that to happen. There were traces of their reiatsu, a few days after he and Ichimaru had fought outside the barracks.

And the killings hadn't stopped. They'd continued. Narumi Arata, a man whom the guard could testify Hitsugaya had fought with, shortly before his death. Hitsugaya snorted; he'd never _ever_ gotten along with Narumi.

The same method? He wondered. He knew so little about this second death. And then, of course it seemed that the Captain-Commander had convened the Captains in his absence and made a decision. Or perhaps he'd made it on his own. Had the matter made it to a vote? That he hadn't even been given a hearing shocked Hitsugaya. It meant that whoever had it out of him had been highly-placed, if no one had moved to block the attempt to remove him from his position without hearing out what he had to say.

He heard the footsteps, a moment before he caught sight of the fluttering hem of a white haori. Hitsugaya looked up, as the Captain of the Thirteenth Division, Ukitake Jushiro paused outside his cell. Ukitake wore the full-sleeved haori, and while his long pale hair was usually unbound, it was tied back by mauve thread today. His dark eyes were always warm and reassuring. Ukitake was a man Hitsugaya could respect; his kindness to his subordinates and his compassion were well-known throughout Soul Society.

"Captain Ukitake!" the guard at the entrance to the holding cells said. Ukitake smiled at the young woman.

"Please," he said, "Leave us. I wish to speak to Captain Hitsugaya, privately."

He saw her wavering, but an order from a Captain was an order, despite how politely it had been phrased. She nodded, and moved further along the corridor, until Hitsugaya heard the sound of a door shutting.

"Ukitake," he said, with a nod of greeting. He hadn't missed that Ukitake had deliberately mentioned his rank, when speaking to the guard.

"Hitsugaya-taicho," the other man said. "I'd hoped to see you sooner, but…" he shook his head. "Events have caught up with us."

"I've heard little since I was moved to the holding cells," Hitsugaya said. "Is there anything you can tell me?"

Ukitake nodded. "Narumi Arata was found dead in the courtyard of the Ninth Division. They haven't managed to place when he died, but they found that he was killed, along with some family retainers, in his family manor. What was significant was your reiatsu at the scene…and the sword of ice sticking out of his heart."

Hitsugaya said, "I see." The same method. And it had been done as a show, this was obvious now, the theatrical element to the deaths aside. He still felt he was missing something, only he couldn't see what it was. Narumi had been singled out. The family retainers hadn't turned up anywhere else. But a show had an intended audience. _Who_ , Hitsugaya thought, _was this for?_ And what was it saying?

"Yamamoto-sotaicho called a Captain's meeting," Ukitake continued.

As expected.

"He decided to suspend you from duty."

Hitsugaya asked the question that he needed an answer to. "Did it go to a vote?"

Ukitake's eyes closed. He nodded. Wordless.

"Who?"

"Soifon. Kurotsuchi. Kuchiki. Zaraki. And the Captain-Commander." Hitsugaya almost cursed silently. Zaraki was the wildcard—Captain's meetings bored him, that much he made clear, and he cast his votes almost on whim. He was primarily interested in battle, and Hitsugaya had no doubt that Zaraki could have voted against him simply out of sheer bloody-minded principle that he'd been excluded from a fight.

That was the requisite five Captains. With the Third, Fifth, and Ninth Divisions still with Acting-Captains, all they needed for a vote to pass was half in agreement.

"Abstentions?"

"Komamura," Ukitake said. He smiled lightly. "He felt that trying a Captain in his absence was not right, and not done in the Gotei Thirteen. I do believe a few were astonished by his decision."

So was Hitsugaya. He admitted he knew little about Komamura, except that the towering Captain had a debt to Yamamoto (didn't most of them?) and tended to follow the Captain-Commander's lead on such issues.

Which left Captains Unohana, Kyoraku and Ukitake solidly against the motion. Almost as expected. He'd spoken to Unohana shortly before Narumi had died, and Kyoraku…

Hitsugaya said, "Ukitake. Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet, Hitsugaya-taicho," Ukitake said, waving him off. "The matter is to pass to the Central Forty-Six. The death of Kahei was regrettable but the Gotei Thirteen had matters in hand. Now that Narumi Arata has turned up dead in the Ninth Division's courtyard, the nobles will be clamouring for the matter to be quickly resolved. That Hisagi-fukutaicho has admitted to being remiss in offering you parole has also been noted."

Hitsugaya felt the frisson of fear, and then he dismissed it. Breathed in the cold, until it enveloped him and his mind was as clear as the skies on an autumn day. "It's passing to the Central Forty-Six then?"

Ukitake nodded, hands clasped before him. "Regretfully so. The Gotei Thirteen will be allowed to appeal the decision only once." With the current state of the votes in the Captain's meeting, Hitsugaya didn't think he wanted it to come to that.

Not with the killer on the loose, and with no sign that he was about to stop.

"I should also mention," Ukitake said, "That Kahei's funeral has been held." He paused, meaningfully. "It was held at the Academy, and he was buried under the cherry blossom tree in the courtyard. They almost had a funeral for the nobles, but in the end, he was the headmaster of the Academy, and—"

"He loved it there," Hitsugaya said. His voice was quiet, almost a whisper. "He wouldn't have wanted to be buried anywhere else. And he always liked to look at the cherry blossom tree from his study window. It was a stupid thing. Mostly dead, and it had never flowered." He cleared his throat. "Thank you, Ukitake."

"I do believe I saw Hyorinmaru in Hisagi's office. I will of course, be speaking to him about showing me the courtyard," Ukitake said. He smiled gently. "Be careful, Hitsugaya-taicho."

Hitsugaya understood. He watched as Ukitake turned, and left down the passageway he had come. He sat, still in jinzen, only now the thoughts weren't trying to piece together what had happened. He knew what he had to do; decision crystallised in a single instant like ice forming across the surface of a still pond. He weighed plans, discarded them.

The guard came back. She still treated him with deference, even though she never referred to him by name. Probably didn't want the awkwardness of having to address him without his rank.

As he waited for Ukitake to do what he had come for, Hitsugaya thought. He wondered if that was how Hinamori had felt, locked up in the holding cells of the Tenth Division, reading a letter written by her Captain's own hand. Aizen. Hitsugaya believed it would be a long time before he could think the name without bitterness, hatred, or resentment.

He exhaled. It was almost time. "Guard?" he called out. He stood up, went over to the bars. They'd put a guard with him, and the steel bars were decently solid, but he had yet to be moved to a more secure place, with sekkiseki in the walls to seal in his reiatsu and to make sure he was helpless. For all they'd decided to relieve him of duty and put him in a holding cell, Hitsugaya thought, they hadn't brought the full weight of Soul Society justice down on him yet. His window of escape was narrowing.

He murmured the chant of the kido spell under his breath. He didn't shorten it, though Hinamori might have. When she came, approaching the bars warily, he stared up at her, with the void in his eyes.

She fell.

Hitsugaya's fingers clenched around the bars of his cell. He'd have to be slow but steady, he told himself. Any release of Captain-level reiatsu would raise alarms at the Ninth Division. He shed reiatsu, bit by gradual bit over the long span of minutes, allowing it to flow around his fingers as they pressed against the cell bars. He shaped it like ice, coating the bars, forcing centuries and millenia of glacial action, the long pressure of progressive years into the steel. It was, after all, _only_ steel. He applied some pressure. The steel cracked, brittle and glazed with ice.

He slipped out through the opening he had made in the bars, careful not to cut himself on the jagged edges of the steel. Hisagi had never asked for his haori; now he took it out, and folded it neatly, before carrying it as a bundle under his arm. People would notice a short figure in a white haori. People would take far longer to realise a shinigami was where he shouldn't be. There was nothing he could do about his hair now, though the colour was unusual enough that he would be remembered.

He knelt down beside the guard he'd knocked out with hakufuku, borrowing a leaf from Hinamori's book. Her eyes were wide open and staring; she'd simply fallen and lost consciousness. He closed them, and then checked to see she hadn't hurt herself from the fall. And then he stood up and strode along the corridor.

He already knew where Hyorinmaru was, even if Ukitake hadn't told him. The zanpakuto sang to him, a constant presence of ice and the weight of the years against his mind. It was the glint of light in the depths of the empty night, and he sought it out, walking down corridors and casting his senses out for any sight of shinigami.

He kept his reiatsu carefully hidden. He'd be discovered eventually, but the more careful he was about keeping from sight, the more distance he could put between himself and the Ninth Division. And that, too, was what Ukitake had given him. His next destination.

He almost ran into the shinigami at the intersection. Hitsugaya judged his timing, slipping back behind the corner. The shinigami hesitated, almost as if he'd sensed something. Hitsugaya had no time for chants. He brought the void up into his eyes, the crushing weight of the vast, empty space that hakufuku invoked, the threat of endless white oblivion, and stepped out into the corridor. Their eyes met. The shinigami resisted it, for a moment, but then he, too, crumpled to the ground.

Hitsugaya had no time to check this one. He ghosted down a few more corridors, always moving towards his sense of Hyorinmaru. Hisagi's office, he knew. Ukitake had said as much, and he knew that the man would probably spend the whole evening tying up Hisagi. He had, Hitsugaya thought, a positive talent for doing so, and in the most kindly, well-meaning way possible.

He found the door to Hisagi's office, then, and tried it. It was locked. Hitsugaya frowned down at it. Most offices had the same kind of doors; a latch system, which could only be opened from within. There was really only one answer for it that he could think of. He laid his fingers against the door, shortly above where the latch would be and spoke one word: _shakkaho_.

The altered spell burned a narrow hole through the door, exactly as he had intended. Hitsugaya reached through the hole in the wood and fumbled for a few minutes before he managed to lift the latch. Then he slid the door open.

Hisagi's office was well-organised, for the most of it. On a sword-stand by the filing cabinets, he recognised Hyorinmaru. He strode over and reclaimed his zanpakuto. He ran his fingers along the smooth, polished scabbard for a moment, before he slipped Hyorinmaru on. With Hyorinmaru's weight against his back, even as Hitsugaya tightened the straps that secured the zanpakuto, he felt…strangely complete.

Having reclaimed Hyorinmaru, he searched for the back exit to the office. There was always one. He found it behind a hanging curtain of bamboo slats and ducked past it, unlatching the door and then sliding it open.

The Shakkaho was bound to attract attention, as much as he'd tried to control it. If he was to make a clean getaway, he would need to move as quickly as possible away from his point of entry.

Most of the Divisions were built along similar lines, though Captains had added or taken away buildings and rooms as the centuries went by. Ninth Division was no different in this respect, and Hitsugaya did not find much difficulty avoiding shinigami as he walked in the dark, winding shadows cast by the barracks buildings.

He caught sight of the courtyard, and skirted it. Even so, he could hear the murmur of Ukitake's voice, carrying in the silence. Too silent? Hitsugaya wondered. It didn't matter. Rather than try the entrance, where the sentries would be posted, he took a running leap and vaulted the low wall that separated the Division from the Seireitei outside.

He landed and went into a quick roll to absorb the impact of his landing before he was back on his feet, then jogged off into the obscuring darkness.


	5. Old Faces

**V. OLD FACES**

Matsumoto was woken from fitful slumber, in the middle of the night. "Who'ssat?" she slurred, groggily. She recognised Hisagi's grim face looming over her. Sone was at the side, and looked both worried and concerned.

"Matsumoto-fukutaicho," they both said, at the same time. Hisagi went on, "Hitsugaya-taicho has escaped. There is a warrant out for his arrest."

Reality crashed in on her. Matsumoto sat up, blinking away the last of the sleep-fog from her mind. "He did _what?"_ she found herself saying.

"He broke out of his cell," Hisagi said. "We found ice caking the bars. He claimed his zanpakuto back, and left. I found two of my Division knocked out by kido, but it seems he avoided the other guards. The Gotei Thirteen has issued an immediate warrant for his arrest."

Matsumoto wondered if it was a bad time to break into her secret stash of sake, locked in the same cupboard where her Captain kept his stash from the care-packages his grandmother always sent him from Junrinan. Personally, she just found it funny that he took great pains to be discreet about going down in person to obtain his package from the post office.

Funny what things the mind could think about, when you really didn't want to deal with the problem at hand.

"I understand, Hisagi," she said. "He hasn't come by the Division."

"You will turn him in if he comes here?"

Turn him in. Already, it had begun. Her Captain was a fugitive, and somewhere along the line, he had become a criminal. And the investigation into the deaths of Narumi Arata and Kahei Ichiro hadn't even gone anywhere significant.

Her mouth quirked in the faint, ironic smile she'd somehow picked up from him. Or perhaps it was from Gin. "Of course," she said, "Whyever would you doubt that?"

He was a little more polite than to tell her what he knew about a Lieutenant's duties to the Gotei Thirteen conflicting with her loyalties to her Captain. He simply gave her a nod and said, "Then I'll see myself out," and left. In any case, Matsumoto was not inclined to escort him to the Division exit.

"I've taken the liberty of having him escorted out," Sone said quietly. "By Hitomi and Takezoe." Matsumoto frowned.

"Why?" she asked.

Sone said, simply, "Will you do it?"

Matsumoto heaved a long sigh. Sone, she thought, really deserved a better answer than the one she'd given Hisagi. So instead, she said, "A Lieutenant's duty, Sone, is to have faith in her Captain. Sometimes…it can be difficult."

He was too polite to mention that faith had blinded Hinamori. That was always the problem.

"I thought we should make sure Hisagi-fukutaicho has not left anything behind at our Division," Sone said. "It would be rather difficult to make any choice, if our Division's security is compromised. And in any case, the Seal is to be returned soon."

Matsumoto smacked her forehead lightly with her palm. "I'd forgotten…" she groaned. With the mess that had resulted from Captain Hitsugaya's imprisonment, the murders, and his subsequent escape, she'd all but forgotten that they were meant to handle the final set of transfer ceremonies for the King's Seal. Then they could forget about the blasted thing and juggle dealing with…she didn't even know what to do about this.

Her fingers found the scrap of cloth she'd kept in her shihakusho. Why had he escaped? Why now?

And what was he going to do?

"It's fine," Sone said, jolting her out of her thoughts. "I've gotten some of the other officers to settle the guard shifts, and the tasks for the ceremony. We'll draw up and plan and have it on your desk by this evening."

Guilt blossomed inside her; slacking off was one thing when her Captain was on the job. But she was the Acting-Captain now, she was the one supposed to keep the Division running and together, and she couldn't do that if she was off shirking her responsibilities and trying to…trying to what? To find the killer? To prove her Captain innocent?

How was she going to do that?

"No," Matsumoto said firmly. "Call a meeting of the Division's officers later this morning please, Sone. We'll work out the plans together."

The look of faint approval on Sone's face was worth it.

* * *

The Academy was mostly as he'd remembered it.

In truth, there was little else to go on. Hitsugaya avoided the sentries by vaulting the wall; an easy task for a Captain of the Gotei Thirteen, and in any case, they were mostly looking for students sneaking out, not intruders sneaking _in_. He landed harder than he had expected; a straight four-point landing and then stood up and strode off before they could find him.

He wondered if he should bother stealing a set of Academy uniforms. He was out of place here, in his dark shihakusho. If anyone had bothered to look. He had been very good at his stealth exercises, back in his days at the Academy.

As he walked across the grassy quad, he felt the memories flood back. He'd spent far less time here than most shinigami had. Even so, it seemed like another part of his life, one he'd long set aside. One he was coming back to now, and not entirely because he'd wanted to.

A few lights still burned in the shuttered paper-screened windows of the student dormitories, but it was mostly dark. Even as he looked at them, a few went out. He held his reiatsu tightly under control, but cast his senses wide so he could avoid the one or two glimmers that had to be students sneaking out despite the curfew.

He shook his head. He'd almost never done that, in his day. Now he sounded old. He'd snuck up to the roof, once or twice, to practise kido. And to watch the stars. He'd always liked heights, always had a good head for them. Up there, in the cool night, breathing in the clear air, he'd felt…peaceful. Undisturbed.

But never at home. Home was always where Granny was, even though the Academy had become a kind of home to him, as the months passed.

No point lingering. He moved on past the dormitory buildings and the training halls, ghosted along towards the courtyard and the place he was supposed to be at. The lone cherry blossom tree, gnarled and hopelessly dead stood before him. He knelt at the marker beneath. He'd managed to bring flowers, a white poppy that was somewhat worse for the wear for being inside his shihakusho. He laid it in front of the marker stone.

They hadn't put anything on it, besides Kahei's name, and his position as headmaster of the Academy, and the dates. No epitaph. That was it. He hunkered down in the silence, thinking. The wind sighed through the old, dead leaves of the cherry blossom tree. He'd always thought of asking Kahei why he'd kept the tree around, in sight of the window. He never had.

A light burned in the window of the nearby headmaster's quarters. Strange, Hitsugaya thought, but it wasn't, really. Of course Kahei would be replaced. He was the latest in a series of headmasters to run the Academy, since the Captain-Commander had first established it. There was nothing more to it.

"I'm sorry," he finally said, to Kahei. To the man who had mentored him, in a way, as much as any of his former teachers could have been said to have done so. "I'll find your killer. That I swear." He drew Hyorinmaru's blade, knowing what he was going to do. The skin split anew along on his palm, droplets of blood falling to the dry dirt before the newly-dug grave. He laid it out before on his palms, offered it. His voice threatened to catch in his throat; anger or regret, Hitsugaya didn't know. "Thank you for everything. And goodbye."

He parried the blow that came in without turning back to see. It had been aimed at his back, would have torn him from hip to shoulder had it landed. But Hitsugaya's reflexes stood him in excellent stead, despite having been off active combat duty for a while, and his block was textbook perfect. He felt the surge of sharply-focused reiatsu behind the strike. In the next instance, he twisted about, using his leverage to force his attacker back, and then riposted.

His slash didn't land; his attacker caught it. Steel rang off steel, and sparks flew in the exchange. He pulled back and delivered a series of arcing cuts. His opponent deflected them all effortlessly; a flick on the last parry bound their blades together for a moment, and then opened a shallow cut along Hitsugaya's cheekbone.

Hitsugaya twisted away best as he could and then moved into Paired Sunbirds, which was beaten aside by a Willow In Breeze. He dodged that entirely and fell to a knee and struck from below with a quick Kingfisher Spears Fish. The unorthodox direction of the form surprised his opponent slightly, and Dance of the Hummingbird left the point of his sword at his opponent's throat.

The reiatsu was familiar, but it was too dark to see by. With his free hand, Hitsugaya said, " _Tsukero._ " The light blossomed in his empty hand, throwing his attacker's features into clear relief. "Imai?" he murmured, in surprise. Almost surprise. It had been years. He carefully removed Hyorinmaru from the man's throat.

Imai Takeshi permitted himself a smile, and a shrug. "I see you've gotten better with a sword since your time here," he said casually. He gestured to the still-burning lamp in the window of the headmaster's quarters. "Would you like to come in and talk?"

* * *

"Tea?" Imai asked, lifting a dark brown clay teapot from a brazier.

"Yes, please."

Imai poured, and Hitsugaya thanked him. Imai had always preferred his pottery to be plain, unmarked pieces. The beauty of each piece, Imai had once said, as Hitsugaya watched his teacher work in the small kiln during his free time, should be made apparent through the work of the craftman's hands, and the functionality of the piece. Not through adornment.

Hitsugaya had always thought that Imai's swordwork was almost exactly like his pottery.

"You came back to see Kahei? A sad affair, that," Imai said. Hitsugaya breathed the familiar scent of green tea, redolent with a few spices. Imai had discreetly added a daub of wild honey to the tea in both cups. It was one of his many peculiarities.

"Yes," Hitsugaya said. "I suppose you're headmaster now."

Imai nodded. "It was almost Genji. Then we would not be having this conversation." He laughed at the sour expression on Hitsugaya's face. Hitsugaya had never liked the man. Genji was one of the more narrow-minded of Hitsugaya's instructors, and a noble. In retrospect, Hitsugaya suspected that Genji had been Aizen's eyes in the Academy. But he'd had so little _proof_ …

Best not to think about such things. Aizen was taken care of. It was over. He closed his eyes, and sipped at his tea. Imai's tea was an acquired taste, Hitsugaya supposed. He thought about the man who had come before Imai. Arai. They'd both been taught by him, at different points in time. Arai was poetry with a sword, or so many had said. He'd personally taken Hitsugaya under his wing, despite the young student having no real aptitude for the sword. He'd done a good deal in instilling a sense of discipline and a feel for swordwork in Hitsugaya.

And he'd died. It was another of those things that couldn't be so easily explained, and Hitsugaya ground his teeth together as he wondered, not for the first time, how many of those things could be laid solely on Aizen's doorstep. Little things, like the death of an interfering swordmaster who saw too much at the Academy. The removal of some of Soul Society's strongest Captains. Gathering promising young students to his side. Biding his time.

No wonder they'd been unprepared.

"Thinking?"

"Just remembering Arai," Hitsugaya said.

"He was a good teacher," Imai said. He'd replaced Arai when the man had died, but they'd felt the loss all the same. Maybe that was why he'd managed to work with Imai, as the younger teacher took up his instruction. They'd both felt the loss when Arai had died.

"Yes," Hitsugaya said. No matter. He could not do anything for the dead.

Not even justice? It was ironic, he thought, to be sitting at a low table with Imai, drinking honey-sweetened spiced tea and speaking of old times. Speaking of the dead, just as he'd planned to bring Kahei's killer to justice. They were shinigami. Their duty was to protect the dead, to help the spirits of the departed make the crossing to Soul Society safely. To safeguard the balance between the worlds.

And here he was, thinking there was nothing he could do for the dead. For Arai.

Sometimes, he knew why Tosen had gone completely batshit crazy. Imai Takeshi had been the youngest son of a wealthy noble family. None of them really knew what it was like outside the Seireitei's walls, and he'd come from _Junrinan_. Junrinan, where it was safe to leave your door unlatched at night.

 _Here be dragons_. Wasn't that the saying?

There were places in Soul Society where the only defense was to learn to become the people who did the hurting. Where 'It's not fair!' was a child's response, until the only answer was to stop caring. Where the only answer was someone _else's_ pain.

Where the only answer was to close your eyes, and hope you eventually became numb to it, because there was nothing else you could do. He was a Captain, and he was still doing that.

Hitsugaya scowled. That voice wasn't his.

He hadn't been the one with all the grand plans.

"How is Terada?" he asked, because he didn't want to think about Arai anymore. The silence stretched and yawned between them.

Imai smiled. "Still gently taking the first few years in hand for unarmed combat training. Then after a few years with me, they run back to him for hakuda." Hitsugaya snorted. Imai's harshness as a sword instructor was _also_ legendary. As was Terada's seemingly infinite patience. And to add to that, the two instructors were very close friends. "But you didn't return to talk about your Academy days. You said you came back to see Kahei."

"Yes. And I came back because Kahei was murdered." In this very set of rooms, Hitsugaya thought. But of course the blood would have been scrubbed off by now. Loss happened, and so did replacement. It was the way of the Gotei Thirteen. Scarcely different at the Academy. He remembered how quickly emptied rooms were filled with new students, back when a few students had been killed during a training exercise that had gotten out of hand.

Imai didn't blink, though surely he had heard about how Kahei died. "I see," he murmured. He glanced down at his pottery cup, but didn't lift it to drink the tea. "Sword of ice through the heart, and his own zanpakuto. Taken by surprise, and then overpowered."

"You saw?" Hitsugaya asked.

"Yes." At Hitsugaya's surprise, Imai elaborated, "I was the person they fetched from the Academy to confirm his identity."

"How good a swordsman was Kahei?"

He'd never sparred Kahei. Kahei had taught him other things, though Imai was still thrashing him regularly when Hitsugaya sparred him, even at the time he was graduating. Imai frowned. "Better than your average swordsman," he said. "Hard to take Kahei by surprise, in any case. And it takes a good amount of power to be doing so."

Hitsugaya accepted that with a nod. "Would you say above ninth seat?"

Imai shrugged. "Why not?" His dark eyes glinted. "Any reason why you're asking?"

Hitsugaya knew Imai, as much as he'd fenced the man a thousand times. The measure of a man could be found in the way their zanpakuto spoke when they fought, and his single duel with Gin had brought him nothing but unease. In the same way, he felt sure about Imai. So he said, "Narumi Arata was discovered dead earlier today."

Imai rocked back on his haunches. He was clearly surprised, though he mostly hid it well. He said, "Narumi Arata. I haven't heard that name in a long time. He was a ninth seat?"

"With the Seventh."

"I remember him," Imai said, slowly. "Promising student, everyone said. He was never quite the same after the duel. More angry and resentful than focused. He was a good swordsman. It was a well-fought duel, for students."

Hitsugaya's mouth twitched in a half-smile. "I suppose," he accepted. "I don't know how Narumi died, except that I suspect the method is similar."

"Your reiatsu," Imai said, almost to himself. "I thought the reiatsu at the Eastern Wall had been familiar. But it had been too long…I wasn't sure."

"Need you ask?" Hitsugaya said, bluntly.

Imai met his eyes. He gave a lazy smile. "You think?"

"I think it's linked to the Academy. That's the other reason I came here," Hitsugaya said. "Call it intuition. I was thinking about the victimology. There are two separate aspects to the killings. First, the killer's trying to make sure the blame goes to me." Even as he said it, he had the strangest feeling there was something he was missing out on. But there was nothing he could do about it now, and he set that feeling aside to mull over another time. "But he hadn't killed just anyone, yet there is no obvious link between Kahei and Narumi."

"You're missing out the obvious: they're nobles."

"Too obvious," Hitsugaya said. "I don't think it's a crime of opportunity. It's a killing meant to send a message to the rest of Soul Society—it's too theatrical to be merely a murder. And if he'd wanted to send a message to the nobles, there are more accessible and more prominent targets than Kahei or Narumi."

"You are sure of that?"

"No. But it's the only answer that seems to make sense," Hitsugaya said, softly. He sipped at his tea. "The culprit is going to great lengths to make me seem guilty. And the less obvious link is that both victims played a role in my past, during my Academy days."

"A number of people have."

"Yes. And I don't think the killer's going to stop with Narumi. Kahei…was just the beginning."

"What does he want?" Imai asked. "If you're right, then this is personal."

"It _is_ personal," Hitsugaya said. Quietly. "It was the moment he killed Kahei." The moment he'd set up Hitsugaya to take the fall, whoever he was.

"More personal than that. There would have to be link between the killer and your Academy days," Imai said, shaking his head.

"Yes. There aren't that many people."

"More than you know," Imai said, stretching with a sigh. "Kahei's files are well organised, but I've yet to appoint anyone to take Shirasu's old position."

"Shirasu's old position?" Hitsugaya asked, blinking. Shirasu had served as the headmaster's administrator since as long as anyone at the Academy could remember, weathering changes in the positions. He'd been the administrator for far longer than Kahei had been headmaster. It was like hearing that Sasakibe was no longer the Lieutenant of the First Division. The consensus was that Shirasu would die in his post, rather than leave the Academy.

"Oh, you didn't know," Imai grimaced. "Shirasu died, the same night as Kahei. Neither of them fought off Kahei's attacker."

Ice crept along his spine. Shirasu was a dusty old man, a little too preoccupied with rules, but as most of the instructors serving at the Academy, he'd been an seated officer and an instructor before being moved to the post of administrator. He knew his way about a blade, and for Shirasu and Kahei to have died…

"I'm sorry," he said aloud.

"I was thinking of appointing Masuno Osamu," Imai said. The head of history, and the instructor in charge of managing the Academy archives. Certainly, a shift to an administrative job would not present Masuno with any difficulty, though Hitsugaya had little impression of the man, including whether he could be trusted, or whether Masuno even had a successor lined up. He said none of those; as headmaster, Imai no doubt had plans.

And that meant the records would not be accessible to him. Hitsugaya said, "I need to look in those student records."

Imai sighed. "They're supposed to be confidential, you know."

"I know," Hitsugaya said. "And there's a killer on the loose. I don't intend to let him get to the next person on his list." He raised his eyebrows. "And you know that if he keeps to his pattern, the next person to die will be from the Academy."

"I can give you a day with the records," Imai said. "Nothing more."

"Thank you."

"I should've thought you'd remember more about the students you knew, back from your Academy days."

Hitsugaya gave an expansive shrug. "I was mostly too busy with the classes, and I hadn't stayed with a class for very long in all my time at the Academy," he said, in response to the almost-rebuke. "In any case, the students who never reached above ninth seat can be safely ruled out."

"Still a tall order," Imai said, smiling. "You do know the batch you graduated with, and the ones directly before and after it were considered the most promising intake the Academy had seen in years." He stood up, draining the last of his tea. Hitsugaya followed suit. "Come. I'll show you to where the records are kept. The faster you are done, the faster you can be gone from here."

Hitsugaya peered out the window at the lone cherry blossom tree. "I never understood why he kept that there," Imai remarked. "He never really said."

"He said he liked the view from his window," Hitsugaya said. "When he could look up from his work and see it. I suppose we won't ever know."

* * *

Hitsugaya leafed through cabinet after cabinet of records. The one fortunate thing was that Shirasu had been as obsessively thorough in his filing system as he was as an administrator. The candle that Imai had left with him was faint light by which to see, but he was grateful for it nonetheless. With a killer on the loose who was leaving traces of his reiatsu at every murder, Hitsugaya wanted to leave as little traces of his reiatsu as possible. So he kept from using the simple spell for light, though that would have made easier reading for him.

Still, this was not the first time he'd studied by candlelight, particularly at the Academy. Funny how all roads were pointing here at this juncture in time. Hitsugaya liked to believe in coincidence. He also wasn't allowed to do so.

He was still uncertain about how he wanted to play this. The killer, he knew, would almost certainly have some sort of link to the people in the records. He suspected he might even be in the records. On the other hand, Hitsugaya knew he would have better luck trying to find the next victim and beating the killer to the person.

_Anticipate. Don't react._

None of the names rang a bell. He recognised a few as people he'd met in passing, perhaps had a conversation with. That was all. All except Narumi Arata. He wondered if he should have spoken more to Imai about Kahei. _About?_ His mind wanted to know. He didn't know what the right questions to ask were.

Narumi Arata. Hitsugaya flipped through the files, feeling strangely as though he was violating the dead man's privacy, for all he hadn't cared for Narumi. There was the usual, notes from all his instructors about how the scion of the Narumi family was a credit to the eminent name, how he was progressing with extreme skill through his various classes and assessments. Not the examinations, of course. As the son of an extremely prominent noble family, Narumi Arata had been spared the indignity of something as base as examinations. He hadn't needed to sit the entrance examinations, and he wouldn't need to sit the graduation examinations.

That was another reason, Hitsugaya thought, tracing the calligraphed characters on the page of the report that described Narumi's successful purification of a dummy Hollow during a training exercise. The Academy was as strictly bound to Soul Society's political hierarchy as the rest. Children of high-ranking noble families like the Narumi were guaranteed a future as a shinigami. The occasional wealthy tradesman's child or the child from a more modestly-placed noble family were still treated as well, for they'd paid their way in.

At the very bottom were the candidates from Rukongai, who had to fight tooth and nail through entrance examinations, graduation examinations. Those without sponsors had no way of paying their tuition fees, and so in exchange for a waiver, they were bound to work for the Academy, normally as servants to the wealthier students. They'd served tables at the mess, done the chores and cleaning, and every task that came their way.

Hitsugaya had been lucky. He hadn't been one of them. He'd been sponsored by the Captain-Commander Yamamoto himself, and his entry to the Academy had been irregular, in the middle of the term. He'd been treated as well as any student hailing from a middle-ranked noble family, or even a wealthy tradesman family. He knew that had been the starting point of the resentment, the jealousy, the envy. Was this the hint he needed?

Narumi. Hitsugaya closed his eyes and remembered. That was how their first clash had come about. Narumi had always had nothing but contempt for Rukongai trash, as he'd called them. He'd taken pleasure in lording it over them, knowing they were expected to show a measure of deference to him. And he'd expected the same behaviour from Hitsugaya.

He hadn't gotten it. For whatever reason, he'd enjoyed picking on Hitsugaya whenever he could. He'd been humiliated, then outraged, particularly when he discovered the small boy eating his dinner in the mess wasn't on assistance from the Academy and therefore couldn't be ordered around.

Narumi would have made enemies, Hitsugaya thought. Their duel had drawn far too much attention, and in the following weeks, it hadn't just been the Rukongai students who were treating him as though he'd made the Captaincy while still at the Academy.

But many of them were from Rukongai.

Hitsugaya took a deep breath. He couldn't afford to make that assumption. A Rukongai student with a grudge against Narumi _and_ himself?

He leafed on through the records. Page after page, and little spoke of any altercations Narumi had been involved in. Hitsugaya resisted the urge to curse. The Academy and its cursed noble politics. Of course. The only references he found were two notes, speaking of the two times they'd had a confrontation which had actually gone on record. The duel. Always the duel.

He wondered how he felt about that now. Just a boy, he thought. A mean-spirited, arrogant boy with the need to assert his authority over everyone else. A gifted boy, even. And he'd picked the wrong target. And now he was dead.

It didn't change the small worm of anger that wriggled in his heart when he thought about it. There was—had been—too much bad blood between them for the anger to disappear. But Narumi was dead now, and Hitsugaya set that emotion aside for more constructive purposes.

 _Wait_.

Hitsugaya flipped the last page again, and then he realised what he'd almost barely noticed, as distracted as he'd been with the details of Narumi's life. He turned back the pages, going slowly through the file again. He frowned. He'd been too preoccupied with the _who_ , the things that Narumi had done, to realise that the Academy's records were kept in a very specific way. Instructors submitted weekly reports of the students progress, and each page was numbered and dated and recorded in the file. He checked back against the contents page. Pages of the monthly reports were missing; not just pages, in fact, but chunks of a month's reports had gone missing.

Hitsugaya frowned. _What?_

The contents page reflected some of these changes, he now realised. Page numbers hastily changed and crossed out in dark, hurried inkbrush strokes. When this had been done, he couldn't have said.

No, Hitsugaya realised. Not missing.

Pages had been removed from Narumi's file.

* * *

The candle burned down to a stub, and Hitsugaya had lit another from a taper, and another, despite the sunlight filtering in through the bamboo slats of the blinds. He'd left the blinds down before the window. Students were wont to get up to all kinds of mischief, and Hitsugaya himself had seen and heard things he wasn't supposed to, during his time at the Academy.

He didn't know if word of his escape had spread this far, or if a student could even recognise him on sight without his Captain's haori, but decided there was no point in taking the risk. He had been too recent a student at the Academy for them to have forgotten about him.

There was no help for it. He would have gone through each and every file if he could, but Imai had only promised him a day uninterrupted. So Hitsugaya chose his targets carefully and hoped for the best. Now that he knew what he was looking for, or even a little of it, discrepancies popped up. It was a strange experience, flipping through the pages of his own file, learning what his instructors had really thought of him.

_Quiet…dedicated…hard working…great potential…possible materialisation of zanpakuto…shikai within the first year…_

He felt the faint pang as he flipped past the pages written in Kahei's neat hand, and Arai's slashing, bold handwriting. Now both of them were dead. And disquiet rapidly overcame nostalgic sadness. There were pages excised from his records as well. The chain he'd only dimly seen was real; binding him and Narumi in a shared past. Hitsugaya frowned and rubbed at his temples, wishing he had a good, warm cup of green tea over which to mull things. Wishing he could recall what that slender link was.

An elusive thought came to mind, but darted away again, like the silver glint of a fish in a pale green pond.

They were his records, Hitsugaya thought, annoyed with himself. There was no reason he shouldn't have been able to spot what was missing.

It wasn't possible, he thought, at the growing suspicion in his mind. But perhaps it was. He'd been overlooking it, unwilling to articulate it.

A further search through the remaining cabinets revealed, mostly by chance, what he had barely begun to pick up on. Hitsugaya's eyes widened; papers held limply in his hand. The candle flame sputtered, and he sharply restrained his reiatsu. He blinked.

Suddenly, he began to see the shape of the puzzle.

* * *

The figure walked through the corridors of the Tenth Division barracks, carefully avoiding the posted guards. He slipped past them as if they weren't there. The Tenth Division had doubled their guards, but had no reason to change the patterns of their patrols, and he knew them…he knew them as he knew the position of his left hand, even in a pitch-black room.

He kept a careful grip on his reiatsu, even though he felt no fear at being discovered. He was more than a match for any of the shinigami present. This, he thought, was mere caution. Lips peeled back from his teeth in a silent laugh; the Captain, he thought, would have found this funny. Pity he wasn't here.

It was only a matter of time. Hitsugaya was supposed to be the clever one, the _tensai_ , the genius. When he first heard the message being relayed across the Seireitei through hell butterflies—easily waylaid, and shinigami were wont to blame it on the pitiful thing getting lost, rather than being intercepted—he couldn't help his amusement.

So Hitsugaya had escaped; broken out from his confinement, and they were all a-stir about that. He slid open the doorway of the Captain's quarters. They weren't empty. They hadn't yet come to aquire the abandoned feel of old rooms. He amused himself by glancing at cabinets where clothes were neatly folded away, a small shelf of books, the neatly-made futon, and the writing desk on which everything was carefully arranged.

No, it was more as if everything had been set aside, waiting for the moment Hitsugaya would step through the door again. It spoke to him for a moment, a strange reminder of home.

In a chest of drawers, he found a stack of neatly labelled letters, and parcels, still wrapped in their brown packaging and tied over with twine. He opened one of the parcels, and fished out, among other things, a packet of amanatto. He smirked, and popped a piece in his mouth, then left the rest as they were.

He'd never quite understood why Hitsugaya had a fondness for amanatto.

He went back to the closet, and searched for a moment before he found a pale, jade-green scarf, a few shades lighter than the richer shade of green in the sash Hitsugaya used. There was a story behind it, of course. There was a story behind most things. The man knew the story.

He bundled the folded scarf under his arm, and then left through the side-exit, into the small courtyard. There was a small garden there, he noticed, filled with all sorts of plants. As he paused for a moment, out of curiosity, he noticed the watermelon growing.

 _Of course_ , he thought.

He left the Division a while later, having circled the grounds once more. He paused for a moment in front of the building that contained the high-security vault of the Tenth Division. Then, and only then, he left.

* * *

"Matsumoto-san?" A small voice disturbed Matsumoto from her sleep. Matsumoto moaned, but clawed her way, bit by grudging bit, to awareness. She rubbed at her eyes, wondering if she should ask her visitor to come back at a better time, aware that she must look a sight in her sleep-deprived state right now.

"Yes?"

And then the figure came into view, and Matsumoto discarded those thoughts. She'd had uncharitable thoughts about Hinamori on occasion, particularly with how the young lieutenant had been behaving. Especially, she admitted, and that was the main reason she had been cross—whenever her Captain was involved.

"Have you heard the hell butterflies?"

Matsumoto said, "Yes."

They'd been dispatched across the Seireitei an hour or two ago, informing everyone that Captain Hitsugaya Toshiro was to be arrested to stand trial for the murder of Kahei Ichiro and Narumi Arata. Matsumoto's heart had sank at those words, and Sone had visibly blanched, before the other seated officers of the Tenth had banded together around their current commanding officer.

"He killed them," Hinamori whispered. Matsumoto saw the glint of tears on her cheeks—pale where the moonlight revealed them. _Pinned Kahei to the Wall like Aizen_. Matsumoto almost thought that Hinamori was going to say it. She didn't.

She didn't know who Hinamori was referring to, when she'd said, 'he'.

"Do you think he did it, Matsumoto-san…?"

Raw, pleading. Why not? Matsumoto thought. Hinamori had given her heart and her unreserved loyalty to Aizen on a platter. He'd taken her trust, abused it, and destroyed it. He'd damaged her, and took a perverse amount of pleasure in having her suffer during the Winter War. There was only so much that could be said for how many times a person could bounce back from betrayal, and all in all, she had not been sure about Hinamori for a long time.

Perhaps even now.

"I don't think he did it," she said calmly, ignoring her own doubts.

Gin and Hitsugaya, and sometimes she was certain Gin had cast a long shadow indeed, even at the end. She'd never been certain of him and sometimes she never knew if she was certain of her Captain.

Why he was doing what he did. Just as mysterious as the sliver of moon that balanced at the end of Hyorinmaru's chain, as the daffodil that symbolised their Division. Matsumoto yearned for certainty. Ached for it.

"They're going to execute him if they find him," Hinamori said. Her voice trembled. The hell butterflies had _also_ been clear about that. Attempting to take in a non-cooperative Captain was difficult, if not suicidal for most shinigami, and Central Forty-Six was under no illusions about how best to proceed.

And the Gotei Thirteen had countersigned that order in the dispatches that followed. Matsumoto had read them with a heavy heart. Why were they doing this? Hadn't they learned from the last time Aizen had tried to frame members of the Gotei Thirteen and turn them on each other?

But if someone was playing Aizen's game here, what purpose was it for?

The King's Seal, she thought. It had to be.

"I know," she said again.

"If the order comes, what will you do?"

For a moment, it wasn't Hinamori talking to her. It was Hisagi, eyes wary with the knowledge that came from experience. Tosen had, after all, betrayed his trust. He knew all about the contradictions and conflicts that came with being a lieutenant.

Matsumoto hid. "I have other responsibilities," she said simply. "In the absence of a Captain, all responsibility for protecting the King's Seal rests with me, as the acting leader of the Tenth Division. Those supersede any orders Central Forty-Six or the Gotei Thirteen may see fit to issue at this time."

Much better than admitting: _I don't know_.

Hinamori looked very, very small. "Matsumoto-san…is there any way we can help Shiro-chan?"

Matsumoto exhaled; a long, tired breath. "Not yet," she said, with forced optimism. "But I'm sure he knows what he's doing." Or so she hoped. "He'll be fine, Hinamori. He's been through far worse than this."

* * *

In the morning, Matsumoto found the watermelon patch that her Captain had always carefully tended had been slicked over with ice. She stared at it, her hand almost finding Haineko's hilt, her heart in her mouth as she cast out around her.

No familiar reiatsu met her senses; the only familiar traces were vestigial, and even now fading. The strongest source of icy reiatsu bled from the patches of ice in front of her. She picked up a shard of ice and rubbed it between her fingers, thinking.

"Captain?" she asked aloud.

There was no response. She wasn't sure if she'd expected any.


	6. Time Out of Joint

**VI: TIME OUT OF JOINT**

Imai had left a platter of food and a cup of green tea outside the archive door. Hitsugaya hadn't realised how hungry he was until he saw it. His eyes felt gritty from the lack of sleep, but overwork was something he was almost used to, by now. He'd just never had his life depend so directly on it before.

He ate quickly; the food was good, but it was beginning to turn cold. The tea, at least, was barely warm, but it was still a relief. He would have heated it a little with kido, but felt no sense in doing so in the school grounds. As he did so, Hitsugaya considered his next move. He could not stay at the Academy. It would not be safe, and Imai had made it clear he could not continue to shelter Hitsugaya.

Perhaps he should have worried about Imai, but the man was a good enough swordmaster and he had been warned. Most of the Academy instructors would have been on alert, and as staying at the Academy was no longer an option, Hitsugaya decided that they would simply have to deal with the killer should he return.

No, Hitsugaya thought, there were too many people the next target could be, but his money was down on Kyoraku Shunsui. Captain of the Eighth Division, and one of the most senior Captains in Soul Society, there was far more to Kyoraku than he let on. Most of all, Hitsugaya's past held too many links between them. He owed the man, Hitsugaya thought, and that had formed a good part of his loyalty in the past. He'd be damned if anything happened. And while Kyoraku was more than able to fight off an attacker…

Hitsugaya scowled and dismissed the thought as being far too callow. He'd never shared Hinamori's fascination with Captains, even before he'd come to the Academy. Captains were powerful, but they were still people. Some more experienced and cany than their younger counterparts. They could be killed through wearing them down to the point of exhaustion, through trickery, through illness, through sheer incompetence…executed...overpowered through sheer weight of numbers…

The list went on, all the different ways to kill a Captain. All the different ways Hitsugaya knew he could die.

Matsumoto. What had happened to her? He felt some guilt that he hadn't yet given her a thought. He'd been too busy running, too busy trying to find a way out of his current predicament. Yet at the same time, as his thoughts went to her, she seemed just as natural a target. She was his Lieutenant. Her link to his Academy days was no less than Kyoraku's. Perhaps greater, in a sense.

He exhaled, staring down at the cooling cup of tea. It wasn't the first time someone tried to kill a Lieutenant to get to their Captain.

And he'd been reacting, Hitsugaya thought irritably. What he needed to do was to start fighting back and taking matters into his own hands. He'd started that by escaping the Ninth Division and running for the Academy.

Matsumoto. Could he afford to put her in such a position?

Hitsugaya scowled. He knew what her answer would be.

* * *

Hitsugaya dodged the patrolling shinigami along the streets of the Seireirei, and then slipped in through the small postern-gate at the back of his Division. He'd hoped the gate would be left unguarded, and it had been. Its existence was known only to the Captain and the Lieutenant of the Tenth Division, and its presence was carefully concealed by kido worked long ago into the mortar of the surrounding wall. As he passed his hand over it and spoke the keyword to activate the gate, it simply appeared, without any fanfare, as if it had been there all along.

He knew it had.

There was a brass lock for a key, but Hitsugaya didn't have the key on him, and he didn't need one. Such locks were rare in the Seireitei, but they did exist. Instead, he carefully channelled a trickle of his reiatsu into the keyhole. Ice formed, taking on the shape of the gap into which he poured his spiritual energy. It hardened, sending splinters of ice crackling to the ground. Hitsugaya frowned. There was ice on the ground, he noticed. It was not his. He knew his ice, and…

He bent down, and picked up a handful of ice-shavings. He rubbed them between his fingers, trying to sense what had thrown him off. The patterns were wrong, Hitsugaya realised. Woven tightly through the ice was the familiar signature of Hyorinmaru, the same reiatsu. But underlying it…

It wasn't _his_ reiatsu. It wasn't his spiritual energy. Difficult to tell, unless you knew what you were searching for…and because it was _his_ reiatsu, _his_ ice, the difference to Hitsugaya was as clear and stark as the difference between night and day.

He closed his eyes, and called forth the dragon, stirred into wakefulness by his disquiet.

 _No,_ the dragon rumbled, and sharp, distinct colours overlaid his vision. _You see? It is not the same._

No, Hitsugaya thought, it was not. The key of ice, the fresh shavings that had fallen gleamed a pale, icy blue to his vision. The shavings he held in his hand were a darker, inky-purplish-blue, like midnight violet. Almost, he thought with a shiver, as though the ice had been _corrupted_ , somehow. He thought about it. There had been one, before, but…

But he was dead. And Hitsugaya was used to not-thinking.

It didn't matter. He blinked, and the colours faded. The ice was just ice to his eyes, though the ghosts of the colours flickered at the corner of his vision. He put his hand to the key of hardened, packed ice he had created, and turned it. He pushed against the small postern gate, and the barred wooden door slid open, noiselessly.

The intruder had entered his division, or left this way. There were more ice-shavings on the other side of the door. Had left, then. Some ice had been strewn this way, or…

He had wanted to leave a trail. Hadn't cared about the fact that his comings and goings could be noted. Hitsugaya very carefully made sure that his reiatsu was being concealed, and then strode on.

* * *

Perhaps it was because she hadn't been expecting to do so at all, that Matsumoto sensed it.

A faint, very faint flicker of reiatsu, almost undetectable, except for the fact that she was so very attuned to it. She jerked still in her chair, trying to sense it, almost knocking over the empty bottles of sake on the table. She'd needed them last night, after Hinamori. Had never gotten around to clearing them out.

It was two kan for a returned bottle, wasn't it?

There was a second flash of reiatsu after the first, before it subsided. Matsumoto almost worried at her lower lip, wondering. There was a time when she would have known without a doubt who it was, but now…but now she wasn't so sure. Her certainty had been taken away, with the murders. Her hand fell to where Haineko lay on the table before her. With a few deft movements, she fastened the sword to her obi and stood.

* * *

She found him in his room, surveying the mess. Matsumoto's hand flew to her mouth; she hadn't come in since he'd been arrested and taken away. No, since he'd gone with Hisagi and Kira.

He sensed her in the door; he always did, and he gave that momentary half-turn of his head that indicated he knew she was there. It worked one way—she'd never been able to quite take him by surprise, though he hid his presence so well that she'd often accused him of sneaking up on her.

"They didn't come back here to conduct a search."

"No," Matsumoto said. The responsibility had fallen to her, but in the middle of running the Division, she'd almost entirely forgotten. No doubt the next round of messages contained some from Hisagi, wondering why she was delaying on the search of her Captain's quarters for any form of evidence that could be brought to bear on the murders.

She wondered if it mattered, now. They'd taken his running away as a sign of guilt, and now events were moving too fast for an investigation to proceed. Almost too fast for her to follow.

"Then he did it," Hitsugaya said, almost to himself, as he looked at the mess his desk was in, closet open and ransacked, chest of drawers all open. "But to what purpose?"

"He?"

He made an impatient sound. "Surely you didn't think I was behind the murders."

"No, Taicho." But it felt good to hear him deny it, with his own voice. "But he?"

He turned now, and looked at her. He looked tired, dark circles smudging his eyes, and his blue-green eyes feverish bright and bloodshot. His robes were crumpled in a way he would not usually have stood for, while on duty. A reluctant half-smirk traced its way across his lips. "Just a guess," he replied.

He inspected the closet, searching through rumpled and scattered clothes, until his eyebrows drew together. "A scarf's missing," he said, at last, in that quiet voice. He moved over to the chest of drawers.

"There's an order out from Central Forty-Six. The Captain-Commander countersigned it. You are to be brought into custody, for the murders of Kahei and Narumi. Preferably alive, but all members of the Gotei Thirteen are authorised to use all available force."

He went perfectly still. "I had heard of it," he said. He was still rifling through his belongings, looking for some sign of what the intruder had come for.

" _Kuso,_ " Hitsugaya hissed, suddenly. In a tone that she had almost never heard him use before. He swore infrequently, and his expression now combined fear with extreme anger. He held a pile of letters in his hand.

"Taicho?"

"The parcels," he said. "They've been searched. And one of the letters is missing."

"Letters," Matsumoto repeated. "From Junrinan?"

His breath hissed out between his teeth. "From my grandmother," he gritted. His reiatsu fluctuated, burning, sharp with a distress that sent trickles of ice coalescing along the floor, before he regained control and clamped down on the leaking reiatsu. "He's taken the letter."

He shoved the stack of letters back in the chest of drawers, held up a parcel. A packet slipped out of it before either of them could catch it, spilling amanatto to the ground. Hitsugaya and Matsumoto both stared at the candies. "The packet was opened," Hitsugaya said, clinically. "He wasn't looking. But he found the letter and knew what he could do with it."

He was out the door the next moment, and Matsumoto found herself following him. But he turned then, and barked, "No, you stay here, Matsumoto."

"My place is with you, Captain!" she retorted fiercely.

He shoved a package at her; startled, her reflexes acted before she did. She caught it, awkwardly, in one hand, before she realised what it was. It was entirely white. She unfurled it. Hitsugaya's white haori tumbled loose in her grasp, dark viridian inner lining showing. The character for _ten_ blazed proudly in dark strokes at the back of the haori, with the distinctive alternating slashed patterns at the very bottom of the Captain's cloak.

A Captain had to wear their haori at all times. Never parted with it, except in resignation or disgrace. Even dead Captains were buried with their haori.

Was he—?

The magnitude of the gesture struck her. "Taicho!" Matsumoto shouted, adjusting her grip on his haori. But as she ran out into the courtyard of the Tenth Division, she knew it was too late. Hitsugaya had gone. And he had left without her.

She frowned at the haori, lips pursed. He thought he could manage perfectly fine without her, and had told her to stay with the Division. And he'd run off, chasing the intruder to wherever he had gone. Matsumoto folded up the Captain's cloak, taking good care to handle it far more neatly than Hitsugaya had. She left it on top of his writing desk, in his room.

She knew where he had gone. She'd been there before. A rumble split the air. Matsumoto glanced up, in the courtyard. The sky was dark grey, threatening rain.

* * *

Hitsugaya ran.

He ran as fast as he could, and perhaps altogether a little more recklessly than he should have. Without his haori, he was simply a figure in a dark shihakusho, and in his speed, it was easy to get mistaken for a courier.

He flash-stepped past startled patrols, leaped off buildings, using surfaces to propel him forward, towards his destination with increasing speed.

The sky was dark, mirroring his fear, desperation, and anger.

Thunder rumbled. He knew it was going to rain.

* * *

He would have run out past Jidanbo, but there was no time to explain all that he needed to to the kindly Guardian of the West Gate, much less put Jidanbo at risk. Instead, a neat pommel strike delivered to the chin and then the head of the sentry on duty took out the man, and then Hitsugaya was moving on, past him, through the postern gate in the Western Wall and onwards.

He was in Junrinan in moments, pushing himself to the limits of his speed. Hyorinmaru was still in his hand, though sheathed. He sensed the reiatsu then; the cold heart of a waiting storm, and then the inky hints of midnight, corruption seeping through the presence.

He was outside his home. Ice slicked the vegetable garden his grandmother grew. There was still no door, just a hanging cloth. He pushed past the cloth, and entered his childhood home.

The man had dark hair, elegantly tied back. His eyes were a bright scarlet, which Hitsugaya had never remembered. They used to be dark violet, he thought. A few shades off the colour of the sky at midnight. He was tall, taller than Hitsugaya had remembered, and altogether very much alive. When Hitsugaya had last seen him, he had been very dead. As dead as Hitsugaya could have made him.

Guilt, anger, fear—all of these swirled together in his mind at once as he took a step forward. He recognised the sword the other man held. It was Hyorinmaru, though the sheath was a dark, glossy red, just peeking out from beneath the dun cloak and the hilt-wrappings were the faint purple that he'd seen on the ice. Grandmother was behind; her mouth gagged and her hands bound together with bonds of ice.

For all of a moment, Hitsugaya was the raw young boy who'd just killed another person. Anger burned with a frigid clarity in his mind.

Hyorinmaru swung up in an instance, on guard. "Release her," Hitsugaya said, "Kusaka."

Kusaka smiled. "I was beginning to think it would take you forever. _Tensai_."

"Release her," Hitsugaya repeated. The words almost tore themselves from his throat in a growl. "She has nothing to do with the bodies you've been leaving all over the Seireitei."

"Oh yes, the bodies," Kusaka said. There was a streak of madness in his eyes—they'd never been red before—and his smile was several inches too wide. "I thought they would send the right message."

"You wanted revenge," Hitsugaya snapped.

Kusaka blinked in surprise. "On Soul Society," he said. "Let it do them good to have corpses defiling their neat and orderly streets, bound by old rules that should have been better forgotten! No, it was not just revenge, though I enjoyed the chance to ruin the perfect order those old men of Central Forty-Six have devoted their lives to enforcing, whatever the cost." He threw out the pale green scarf, tossed it to the side. Hitsugaya's eyes followed the movement; a letter lay there, discarded as well. "Isn't it obvious? I want to finish this."

"A message," Hitsugaya breathed, realising. All the pieces slipped back into place and this time, the shape of the puzzle changed and all became clear like the sunlight through ice. Kusaka hadn't killed all those bodies and tried to pin the murders on Hitsugaya. That was incidental to all of this, when Soul Society had panicked. "You wanted to send me a _message_."

Kusaka raised his free hand. In a single moment and a sharp outpouring of reiatsu, a gleaming sword of ice formed in his hand. The same one, Hitsugaya was willing to bet, as had been found in all the corpses. He threw it; it planted itself point-first in the ground, a hair's breadth away from Hitsugaya's leading foot.

He reached out and touched it, felt reiatsu and intention interwoven in the blade. A message. Meant for _him_. And only for him—Hitsugaya was the only one who could've had a hope of reading the message burned into the blade in Kusaka's reiatsu. Only because they shared an element, because they shared a zanpakuto.

Because they shared a past.

"You want to end this."

"No," Kusaka said, gone eeriely still. "Not yet. I want to play a game, _tensai_." He smiled, sharp on his drawn, gaunt features. "I broke into your Division. Your men meant nothing to me. I found your letters, and took your scarf. And it brought you _here_ , where it began for you."

"I'm here," Hitsugaya said. "My grandmother has nothing to do with this. Release her, and we'll fight."

He sensed Matsumoto burst through the door behind him. She flanked him, Haineko drawn and in her hands. "Captain," she acknowledged him tersely. "I felt it was best I come."

Kusaka glanced between the two of them, and chuckled. A sly smile crept over his face. "Well, well," he said, "Bringing someone else to do your fighting for you? I expected better, Hitsugaya."

"Go," Hitsugaya snapped, "And I'll hunt you down. I'll play your game."

"So readily?" Kusaka asked, with mock-surprise. "You may regret that, in time."

Hitsugaya stepped to the side. "Matsumoto," he said, in a cold voice that left no room at all for questioning. For disobedience.

She stepped aside. They watched as Kusaka passed by them, left the small house where Hitsugaya had once lived, where she'd tracked him down and told him he had to become a shinigami. In a sense, where it had all begun.

With a sharp, clear crackling sound, the ice binding Hitsugaya's grandmother broke apart and melted. Hitsugaya sheathed Hyorinmaru in a quick gesture and stepped forward. "Granny?" he asked quietly. "Are you alright?" He checked, but realised that Kusaka had knocked her out cold while he was orchestrating his little game.

He knelt down beside her. There was a large bruise around her wrist, where someone had grabbed her. He bit back on his anger, and focused a trickle of healing reiatsu into her body. Finally, she stirred. "Toshiro," she breathed, looking up at him.

"Granny," Hitsugaya said. "I'm so sorry. I came as fast as I could." The anger had faded; all that was left was uncertainty and a gentleness that Matsumoto had seldom seen.

"Don't be…" she said. She touched her hand to his arm. "You came in time…"

Hitsugaya choked back the tension, the tremble in his voice. "Yes…" he whispered, even though everything told him he'd been too late, too lucky… "I'm sorry. You shouldn't have been drawn up in this."

"Who was that man?" Granny asked.

He turned, saw Matsumoto regarding him, the same unvoiced question on her lips.

Clinically, distantly, Hitsugaya said, "He was the first person I'd ever killed."

* * *

Matsumoto sat, and listened to her Captain tell them about his life at the Academy. In a way, she'd already known that the Academy had always been hard on its students. But the story that Hitsugaya was telling them chilled her, to the core.

"I learned the name of my zanpakuto as a fourth year student," Hitsugaya said. To his grandmother, who was sitting on the tatami matting, face solemn, he said, "The name of my sword. All shinigami students must learn it, to control their power."

Matsumoto sucked in a breath. She'd heard about his swift rise through the Academy—how could she have not? But this astounded her, nonetheless. Learning the name of his zanpakuto in his fourth year was extraordinarily quick—and yet it made sense. He'd been approached by Hyorinmaru in his sleep, and there was no doubt that learning Hyorinmaru's name would have gotten him on the fast track to graduating from the Academy.

"I learned it," Hitsugaya said, turning to her, "In a formal duel with Narumi Arata. I had challenged him to a formal duel, much to the surprise of many people. Narumi Arata had been a fifth year student, then, and he had previously released his zanpakuto."

Matsumoto said, "The same Narumi Arata who was killed?"

Hitsugaya gave a tight nod. "Yes," he said. "But the trouble didn't start until another fifth year student, by the name of Kusaka Sojiro, learned the name of his zanpakuto."

"What was it?"

Hitsugaya said, softly, "Hyorinmaru."

"That's impossible," Matsumoto said reflexively, and yet it explained _so much_. The almost identical zanpakuto. The ease with which Kusaka had shaped blades of ice. How their reiatsu was indistinguishable, enough to fool most of Soul Society into believing that Hitsugaya had murdered the two men.

When all along, it had been Kusaka.

And yet they'd been taught that zanpakuto were an extension of their wielders' deepest selves. They were forged from the very souls of the shinigami who wielded them and therefore reflected that soul. It wasn't possible for two separate shinigami to share the same zanpakuto, just as it wasn't possible for two separate shinigami to have the same soul.

But…

"It happened," Hitsugaya said, in that cold, tired voice. He looked away from her. "Central Forty-Six knows that it is possible for shinigami to share the same zanpakuto. By ancient law, this is forbidden."

Forbidden. Something told Matsumoto she didn't want to know what came next. But she asked, anyway.

"What happens, then?"

"The two shinigami are taken to an old clearing," Hitsugaya said. "They are brought before the Central Forty-Six and told of the ancient law and then brought to the old clearing to fight. Only one of them will walk away from the battle. The other must die. It is…not sufficient that he dies. All memory of him will be eradicated."

Matsumoto said, "You won, didn't you?"

Eyes met hers, deep as jade wellsprings, and an ancient, cold wyrm of darkness coiled up at the bottom of those wells. He said, "Yes. Yes, I did."

"Then how is he…?"

"I don't know."

* * *

Steel skirled off steel as they fought. Kusaka had always been the better swordsman. Hitsugaya had always been better with kido, the better strategist. Here, Kusaka's longer reach came into play and Hitsugaya was forced to parry madly just to survive.

In the middle of that, Hyorinmaru and flashes of kido spells came into play. Kusaka swept long daggers of ice at Hitsugaya, who made a fist, and watched as the ice crumbled into dust, glittering like diamonds in the light. He returned by aiming a careful Byakurai at Kusaka, forcing him to dodge to avoid the kido spell.

In that moment, Hitsugaya could have taken on the offensive. He hesitated—

_Why do you hesitate?_

"I didn't want to fight," he said aloud. He remembered how this fight had gone. "I wasn't ready to kill."

_You fought and killed Hollows. Why not him?_

"He was my friend," Hitsugaya replied. "I could not have killed him. I was willing to give you up if that meant we wouldn't have fought."

_Power draws us down paths we would have otherwise not chosen._

"Yes."

_You wanted to survive, in the end. More than you wanted him to live. Do not doubt that._

He fought, like a wildcat. Bleeding from too many wounds, he parried the blow that Kusaka aimed at his midsection, and whipped his free hand across and spoke a single word: Byakurai. Pressed as closely as they were, Kusaka could not evade in time, and the stream of tightly-focused blue-white lightning burned through his shoulder and he cried out in agony.

His grip on Hyorinmaru loosened, but the zanpakuto was not a weapon to be wielded with two hands, as much as Kusaka's version was slightly shorter. Hitsugaya led in with a curving strike that tore the blade from Kusaka's hand. The second strike struck home.

A large, diagonal cut opened across Kusaka's chest. Blood sprayed; drenching them both. Kusaka staggered backwards, violet eyes wide with terror and panic. He brought his hand up and managed, "Shakkaho."

Hitsugaya was caught unprepared. He threw himself to the side, but the kido spell grazed him, with a shout of fire. In the scuffle, he dropped Hyorinmaru. Kusaka charged, slammed into Hitsugaya, bearing him down. They rolled across the grass, struggling. Seeking for some sort of advantage.

Hitsugaya managed to wriggle free and placed a tight chokehold across Kusaka's throat. "Give up," he panted.

Kusaka said, chest heaving, "You said you didn't want to fight."

"I don't," Hitsugaya gasped. "Give up."

"Give up Hyorinmaru?" Kusaka wanted to know. "I'd rather die." He twisted suddenly, scything out with his legs, and now he was on top, and there was almost nothing in his eyes as he reached out and broke Hitsugaya's neck.

* * *

Hitsugaya woke up.

Matsumoto had left for the Division, under his orders. The King's Seal still had to be protected, and Hitsugaya only hoped that Kusaka's game would not involve her. He snapped back to awareness at once, lying still on his back, breathing heavily.

That was not what had happened. Hyorinmaru had been silent during that fight. Kusaka had lost. They'd fought, and Kusaka had died. They had gone to ground at the end of the fight, desperately seeking for some sort of advantage with their bare hands.

He closed his eyes, for a moment, but he still saw Kusaka's terrified eyes behind closed lids.

He opened them again. A cool wind blew into his childhood home, stirring the hanging cloth of the doorway. He shouldn't have come here. Shouldn't have brought the darkness of the Seireitei into his old home, and his grandmother's life.

She was still awake, mending a rip in an old sleeve. She looked up, even though he was certain his approach had been almost noiseless. He prostrated himself before her, pressing his forehead to the tatami mat. He had done this once before, he remembered. Hyorinmaru lay at his side.

"I should go," he said. "They'll be looking for me."

He'd brought the danger to her doorstep once before. He should not have taken a meal here, much less slept here. Yet he'd given in; weakness at the familiar scents of childhood, the meal with the spices and the textures of the cooking exactly as she'd always done them. They'd lulled him into a sense of normalcy that he couldn't have otherwise gotten.

All the while, Kusaka was out there. Planning his next move. It was where he had to be.

"So go," she said.

So he left.


	7. Watch It Burn

**VII: WATCH IT BURN**

Hitsugaya wandered around the outskirts of Junrinan for a bit, letting the cool wind ease the last remnants of the dream from his mind. At the same time, he thought, trying to decide what Kusaka's next move would be.

Kusaka had been planning something. He'd read that sense of cool deliberation from the sword of ice. More than a game? Hitsugaya wondered. Why a game? Kusaka had said as much; he hadn't wanted a final fight to the death. He'd wanted more than that.

Trying to piece together Kusaka's motives was difficult. Hitsugaya wondered…Kusaka hadn't been that subtle a strategist the last time they'd crossed blades, and he'd no doubt they'd be forced to do the same again this time. He wore a black shihakusho this time, he realised. Not the blues and whites of the Academy. Hitsugaya wondered if that changed anything. If Kusaka had simply stolen it. And what of Hyorinmaru?

The sword had shattered when they'd fought. Had it been reforged when Kusaka had come back? How had Kusaka come back?

He drew a deep breath. He had too many questions, and too few answers. He took out the stolen scarf, and carefully wrapped it about his head so it concealed his hair. That would make moving around the Seireitei a little simpler, though he still expected to be challenged.

They had been messages, Kusaka had said. Were the first two swords of ice meant to give him hints as to what Kusaka's plan had been? Hitsugaya thought about breaking into Kurotsuchi Mayuri's private laboratory, and then dismissed the thought. It would attract too much attention, and if he tried to sneak in, it was almost certain that he would be caught. Kurotsuchi was by far too paranoid to leave his private sanctum without all sorts of nasty traps and tricks, and for Hitsugaya, it was not yet worth the risk.

That left his original plan. To intercept Kusaka as he moved against his next target.

There were so many people the next person could be. Kyoraku. Matsumoto. Imai. Any of his instructors at the Academy. Kusaka might go after the new Central Forty-Six, but after what had happened with Aizen, Hitsugaya doubted that Kusaka would find them an easy target. So perhaps not the Central Forty-Six. What about fellow students at the Academy?

Hinamori. Etsuko. Takei.

 _No_. Kusaka wasn't just killing anyone connected to him. It couldn't be. He'd had plenty of time to kill Granny, but hadn't done so. Instead, he'd waited. To draw Hitsugaya to him. To play the game. He'd known Hitsugaya would not have risked open combat in a small house that hampered movement. Not when dodging a spell might easily kill Granny.

He'd heard the hate in Kusaka's voice when Kusaka spoke of Soul Society.

And then Hitsugaya knew, with certainty, though he couldn't say _how_ that it was Kusaka's goal. To destroy Soul Society, and to take every measure of the vengeance he could.

And as a Captain of Soul Society, there was only one place that put him.

At the other side of Kusaka's blade, damn him.

Which was _exactly_ what Kusaka wanted.

* * *

When Matsumoto got back to the Tenth Division, Sone had already been looking for her. "Lieutenant Matsumoto!" he exclaimed. "There's been trouble."

"What is it?"

"Tani's discovered that someone's broken into supplies." Tani Jurou was the tenth seat of the Division, and the quartermaster. "Possibly two days ago, he didn't realise as he was in the middle of stocktaking. But there's no mistake about it. Supplies are missing."

"Which?" Matsumoto asked.

"A box of Hollow bait. It can't have been misplaced."

Coin-sized and therefore highly portable, Hollow bait was crushed to draw Hollows to a site. Often used for training exercises, Hollow bait was a highly dangerous thing to misplace, and Tani knew better than that. It had been stolen. Requests for Hollow bait required a good deal of paperwork. Sometimes, it was thought to be far easier to simply request for patrol duty, or to hunt down a rogue Hollow that the Twelfth Division had detected.

A box of Hollow bait, gone missing…

Matsumoto's blood ran cold.

* * *

The orange strands of a kido net wove through the points. Each node marked a spot where a piece of Hollow bait laid. Kusaka drew Hyorinmaru, and gathered his reiatsu.

The blade burned with dark midnight-violet fire as his will gathered. Then he thrust the blade point-down into the piece of Hollow bait directly underfoot.

The Hollow bait broke, flaked apart into tiny spirit particles, each of which were irresistable to a Hollow. The bruise-hued reiatsu spread out from the point of contact, snaking along the kido net almost instantaneously. At every single node, Kusaka knew, the crushing force of his reiatsu would break the Hollow bait placed there.

"Let the games begin," he said aloud, to the howling wind.

* * *

She heard the howl of the dragon on the wind. The sky overhead darkened, and Matsumoto felt something cold land on her cheek.

"Hail," Sone whispered. Small pieces of ice kept falling from the sky. They exchanged glances. Matsumoto hadn't told him about Kusaka, but they all knew Hyorinmaru was at work. "Lieutenant Matsumoto, what shall we do?"

"Gather the squads," Matsumoto ordered. "Sone, you're in charge here. Gather as many as you can and leave guards for the King's Seal. I'll take the squads and head out to Rukongai."

Sone cursed. "The Hollow bait."

"Yes."

She was out of the door, even before the alarms had begun to sound.

* * *

Hitsugaya had been heading towards the West Wall when he saw the sky darken, felt a whisper of Hyorinmaru's reiatsu on the wind. He raised his head, felt tiny pieces of ice brush his cheek. It had begun to hail.

_Kusaka, what are you up to?_

And then he heard it: the hunting cries of a thousand hungry Hollows.

At a run, Hitsugaya headed straight back for Rukongai, Junrinan, and prayed he would be in time.

* * *

A hell butterfly fluttered over to the Eighth Division. Ise Nanao held out her fingers, and waited for the hell butterfly to find its perch.

"All Divisions of the Gotei Thirteen, this is an emergency. The detection system has noted an incursion of Hollows in Rukongai. All Divisions are requested to turn out as many squads as possible to the first few districts of Rukongai. This is an emergency."

She adjusted her spectacles, and turned to her Captain. Kyoraku was still lying back on the verendah, his straw hat shading his eyes. "Captain. We have to leave."

Kyoraku sucked on piece of straw. "Yare, yare," he sighed. "I guess it can't be helped. Nanao-chan, you take the squads into Rukongai."

"But what about you?" Nanao asked. "The order came for as many shinigami in Rukongai as possible!"

Kyoraku sat up, adjusting his hat. "Ah, Nanao-chan…the Division will do just fine without me. There are some things I need to see to."

"What?" Nanao asked, frustrated. "Captain, you can't abandon the Division like this!"

Kyoraku stood up, and picked up the daisho pair that served as his zanpakuto. He took his time about it, sliding the longer sword into his obi first, and then the shorter one. He took his time about his reply too. "Go collect our squads, Nanao-chan. No sense in making Yama-ji angry right now."

She could see she wasn't going to get more out of him in this mood. With a sigh of frustration, and determined that next time, she would drag him by the scruff of his neck if she had to, Ise Nanao went off to call up the seated officers of her Division.

* * *

Rips in the fabric of Soul Society appeared all over Rukongai. Through these portals, Hollows, giving their signature ululating cry emerged to attack the inhabitants, drawn by the crushed Hollow bait that Kusaka had strewn all over.

Hitsugaya was the first shinigami to respond to the incident. He sensed the first Hollow approaching him from above, and drew Hyorinmaru in a swift motion, striking upwards in a ground-to-sky sweep. The momentum of his run went into the sweep; he cleaved the Hollow in two in a smooth motion, and then charged on.

A Hollow shaped like a mantis bisected a man in half with a sweep of its claws, and then bent down to feed. Hitsugaya snapped, " _Soten ni zase, Hyorinmaru!_ " The dragon of ice roared, released, and dove forward with the swing of Hitsugaya's zanpakuto. It smashed into the Hollow, pinned it, and killed it in the same move. The Hollow flaked apart a few moments later, crumbling away as pieces of ice.

He released all restraint on his reiatsu then; flared it, as the sky rumbled with the promise of rain to come. "Come on!" Hitsugaya screamed, as at least a hundred pairs of Hollow eyes fixed on him. He allowed himself to burn with reiatsu, to burn so brightly that he formed a far more tempting target than any of the souls that inhabited Junrinan. Was it just Junrinan that was under attack? He had no way of knowing; the number of Hollows flooding into Rukongai threatened to swamp his senses.

He darted among them, flash-stepping away from one attack to parry the next with Hyorinmaru, and then kicking off a white-bone mask to descend upon yet another Hollow from above, cleaving it into half with a sky-to-ground slash.

But shinigami could be overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers, and Hitsugaya took a glancing slash to his arm as he dodged an attack he barely saw out of the corner of his eye. The screaming and the cries of the Hollows never seemed to end.

He put his hand to Hyorinmaru's hilt and marshalled his strength, gathering even more reiatsu about him. "Guncho Tsurara!" he cried out.

* * *

The first thing Matsumoto heard was the screaming.

Junrinan was a series of ruined buildings; in places, it was in flames. She heard the screams of the wounded, the dying, and the triumphant cries of Hollows. "Hitomi," she called, and the other seated officer was already by her side.

"Lieutenant?"

"Have the squads fan out," Matsumoto said. "They could have gone beyond Junrinan. I want the squads to perform a sweep across Junrinan first, and then move onwards. If there's a Hollow that's too powerful to engage, the officer in charge has responsibility."

"Yes, Lieutenant." Hitomi calmly turned and began barking out orders to the other seated officers.

"I need a wedge," Matsumoto told her squad, and they obeyed, spreading out behind her. The point of the wedge had to be able to penetrate the mass of Hollows, and that meant point often went to the most capable and most experienced officer.

In that case, the duty fell to herself.

Drawing Haineko, Matsumoto charged into the fray.

* * *

Hitsugaya fought on.

He didn't dare to call on his bankai now, not in such close proximity to the inhabitants of Rukongai. He swept Hyorinmaru in an arc, flinging icicle daggers at some of the Hollows, but all he did was to create space for himself. Even as he killed them, more came. He wasn't killing them _fast_ enough.

It was the most unforgiving game of mental chess he'd ever played, sending dragons of ice to harry the Hollows and relying extensively on Hyorinmaru's techniques in order to help him even the odds.

A single misstep wouldn't just mean death for _him_ , but for the people of Junrinan.

For Granny.

He faltered, trying to get a sense of where she was. Pinned down by the mass of Hollows he was fighting off, Hitsugaya knew he couldn't get to her. Frustration built as he sliced through two Hollows in one stroke and fired an ice dragon point-blank at the next Hollow's mask.

The longer he delayed, the more likely it was that he would be faced with the other shinigami. He'd have to fight his way out, then.

He had to end this. Fast.

* * *

" _Unare, Haineko!"_ Matsumoto called out, releasing her zanpakuto. Ash whipped across the three Hollows in her path, cutting them apart in an instant before her blade reassembled. She dodged a Hollow's force-attacks, and struck out with the blade of Haineko, bisecting the Hollow neatly in half.

Behind her, the members of her squad kept the Hollows from flanking her, and lent support by directing zanpakuto attacks and kido spells at the Hollows they were cutting a path through. Matsumoto could sense his reiatsu, even now. Somewhere in the heart of this crowd, her Captain was fighting.

A whole box of Hollow bait, she thought. And then she heard a familiar voice crying out, "Hyorinmaru!"

A dragon of ice smashed into the Hollows directly in front of her, turning them to ice. Matsumoto dashed on ahead, past the crumbling ice, towards where her Captain had chosen to make his stand.

* * *

"Matsumoto!" Hitsugaya had never been so relieved to sense his Lieutenant's reiatsu as he had been, now. The last time, he thought, had been when she'd stepped between Hinamori and Ichimaru's zanpakuto. "What took you so long?"

Haineko snarled, and scythed across the necks of four Hollows. He ducked away and thrust Hyorinmaru straight into the mask of a Hollow attempting to swoop down on them.

"I'm sorry, Taicho! A girl always wants to look her best when fighting Hollows!"

"Shakkaho!" one of their squad members blasted another Hollow apart, as they cleaved their way into the ice-slicked ground their Captain had been defending for a good amount of time now.

"Matsumoto, I need to see to someone. Can you hold?" He felt like he was abandoning them, yet between the need to make sure Granny was safe, and the need to fight alongside his Division, there was no contest.

"Yes." She added, "We turned out as many squads as we could, and the other Divisions are coming."

"Understood," Hitsugaya said. He didn't sheath Hyorinmaru, but dove forward. Ice smote the two Hollows in his path, and he charged, making a spear of his blade. His momentum carried him in a continuing slash past one Hollow, and then he was free and flash-stepping away to where he needed to go.

Home. He'd been foolish to think leaving would spare Granny further danger. He'd already led the danger to her doorstep once before, and now he simply hoped that he would be spared the consequences of his folly.

* * *

He tore down the old path to his home, dodging Hollows rather than engaging them. There was no time to stop and fight, and in any case, he saw members of the Tenth Division fighting off Hollows when he looked.

He had no idea how they'd come to be the first to respond to the Hollow incursion, nor had he any idea what had happened to the rest of the Seireitei. Mobilisation customarily took a good deal of time, as much as Divisions tried to respond as fast as they could.

The door had been broken down, and the surrounding doorframe splintered. His heart in his mouth, Hitsugaya stepped past the gaping hole and into the home—and saw Hinamori standing there, Tobiume released and in her hand.

She whirled about in an instant, crying, "Tobiume!" and Hitsugaya threw himself down as the twin balls of pink fire slammed into the two Hollows that were looming up behind him, disintegrating them with a single blow.

"Don't you look behind you anymore, Shiro-chan?" Hinamori asked.

"Baka," he grumbled. "I was worried—where's Granny?"

Hinamori pointed at the trapdoor set into the wooden flooring. Like the postern gate, the concealing kido made it such that he couldn't quite see it, even though he knew it was there. Many houses in the wealthier districts of Rukongai had a saferoom, a small, hollowed out chamber where an occupant could hide, or flee a Hollow attack. They had built it together, he and Hinamori. In the end, it had been one of the things they still shared.

Hinamori had always been his better at kido. She'd fashioned the kido that concealed the trapdoor.

"What are you doing here?" he wanted to know.

Hinamori just looked at him. "The hell butterflies sent word," she said, raising Tobiume so the blade pointed at him. "There was an attack on Rukongai."

Hyorinmaru's point twitched; he knew he could bat aside Tobiume in a single moment, allowing her to catch Hyorinmaru on the jutting prongs of her zanpakuto, so he could get a clear path to swing Hyorinmaru's chain at her.

If they fought.

Instead, Hitsugaya said, "It was not me."

"Did you kill them?"

"No."

Tobiume's point did not waver. Softly, she said, "How do I know I can trust you, Shiro-chan?"

"Have I given you reason not to before?"

"No," she said. "Not yet."

That stung. Hitsugaya stepped back, and sheathed Hyorinmaru. Outside, Hollows cried out, but he sensed more and more shinigami beginning to arrive. It was safe to leave, if there was a time for him to do so.

"Shiro-chan. Why did you run?"

"Because it was what he wanted," he said. "There's only one way this will end." And deliberately, he turned his back to her. Trusted that she would not cut him down, or bind him with a kido spell. "Protect Granny."

He did not hear her reply. He left.

* * *

Kyoraku watched the Seireitei empty itself out; shinigami racing to control the situation in Rukongai. He didn't know how that many Hollows had gotten themselves into Rukongai, but he had an inkling…

He started walking again. In the chaos, he went easily ignored. In any case, no one would have stopped to question a Captain, and not a Captain with as much seniority as Kyoraku Shunsui.

The way to the Central Forty-Six compound was almost empty of all shinigami, and hail was starting to descend by the time he arrived at the barred iron doors. The Archives were off limits even to many junior-ranked Captains, but he suspected a senior Captain would have no trouble. In any case, the guards on the Archives were often supplemented by men from the Eighth Division. He'd yet to see one of them tell their Captain off, even if he wasn't strictly allowed into some sections of the Archives.

"Captain Kyoraku," the guard said. He recognised this man—Hisao? Or was it Aki?

It didn't matter. "I've come to take a look at something in the Archives," Kyoraku said, with his most harmless smile firmly on his face.

"Ah, Captain…" Hisao mumbled, before his fellow guard elbowed him.

"Of course, Captain. Take your time."

And the iron-barred doors of the Archives swung open before him.

* * *

In the middle of the chaos, Hitsugaya slipped back into the Seireitei without being noticed. He had sensed Hyorinmaru's reiatsu, raging unchecked in the moments before the Hollows attacked, and knew that Kusaka had something to do with it. He shed the scarf; there was little it could do to help him, within the bounds of the Seireitei.

While the skies were still dark and clouded over, no more ice fell. He'd sealed his zanpakuto some time ago, and no doubt Kusaka had, as well.

He didn't know what Kusaka was planning, but he had a certainty it had to do with Soul Society. The Hollows had distracted the shinigami, sending them out in force to deal with the Hollow incursion and to protect the souls who lived in Rukongai. So it seemed certain that there was something Kusaka had wanted to accomplish in the Seireitei.

He got no sense of what Kusaka was doing, but didn't expect to. Kusaka hid his reiatsu well. Instead, Hitsugaya made his way to the Eighth Division, walking across the Division compounds and dodging the odd shinigami making his way to a squad rendezvous point.

He didn't know if he expected to find Kyoraku there, but if he wasn't as much of a clear maverick as Zaraki Kenpachi, still Kyoraku did things to his own sense of time, and there was a possibility his former Captain might still be in his own Division.

It was a small possibility, and as Hitsugaya entered the empty compound of the Eighth Division, he was forced to revise his earlier plan. Well, perhaps not. Accidents happened, even in the thick of combat, but there would be too many shinigami for Kusaka to hope to lay the blame on Hitsugaya for this one.

Except he'd already mentioned he wasn't looking to _blame_ Hitsugaya, but to send a message.

Had this attack on Rukongai also been meant to send a message?

And then Hitsugaya sensed Hyorinmaru's reiatsu rise again, and, not for the first time in the same day, he ran.

* * *

Kyoraku sensed the presence moving up behind him as he closed the last book, the sound echoing in the empty space. "Well, well," he muttered, cheerfully. "What brings you here?"

"Kyoraku Shunsui," the person said. "Captain of the Eighth Division. Hides beneath a mask of frivolity."

"My, someone's done a fair bit of looking," Kyoraku said. "I'm rather flattered, actually."

"Perceptive enough to search in the Archives," the other man said. Scarlet eyes watched Kyoraku, appraising. The hilt of a zanpakuto was thrust into his obi. Kyoraku thought about how fast he could strike. The wakizashi would be more useful in close quarters. The longer blade of a standard katana-type zanpakuto invariably needed a little more room to be swung. He wore a tattered dun cloak. That could be used as a weapon, to trap a blade, to confuse perception of distance.

"It's kind of rude to know all this about a person but not tell him who you are, don't you think?"

A smile touched the other's pale lips. "Perhaps," he said, evenly. "But who I am is irrelevant. I'm far more interested in what you are here to do, Captain Kyoraku."

Close-quarters, Kyoraku thought. He was an expert at observing without appearing to do so, and so he assessed the other man's stance, and how fast he could draw his wakizashi before getting struck. He gauged the distance between them carefully. "Nevertheless, I know your name. Kusaka Sojiro, isn't it?"

Kusaka smiled. "Clearly, not all of Soul Society's purge was complete."

"Ah, you know, these purges are too much work," Kyoraku said, offhandedly. "Occasionally, one name or two slips through."

Kusaka's eyes narrowed, and he reached into his dark robes. _Wha—_

Kyoraku's eyes watered, and he started coughing and sneezing as the pungent, dusty black smoke filled the library. _A Second Division smoke bomb_ , he realised, and he barely drew his wakizashi in time to reverse-parry as Kusaka dove forward, reiatsu blazing with killing intent.

"My, my," Kyoraku managed, between hacking coughs. He parried the next two blows, dodged a shelf, and drew the katana with his off-hand. "One might think…that you have lost all respect…for an old man, Kusaka-san!"

Kusaka dealt a two-handed blow, which Kyoraku crossed his zanpakuto blades to parry, and then riposted with his wakizashi. Kusaka blocked that, twisted the wakizashi aside, and stabbed for Kyoraku's abdomen.

He flash-stepped to the side, and delivered a series of twin strikes with both his zanpakuto. The smoke was beginning to clear, and Kyoraku was regaining the offensive when he heard the words:

" _Soten ni zase, Hyorinmaru!"_

* * *

The hallway was slick with ice, and Hitsugaya walked carefully. Occasionally, his straw sandals slipped. While he'd never had a trouble with his own ice before, this brought home the knowledge that it was not ice he'd created with Hyorinmaru.

This was Kusaka's, entirely.

He knocked out the sentries with swift bakudo spells, and was moving quickly in the direction where the icy reiatsu had streamed from. Icy, familiar, and yet different at the same time. He sent a wordless query to Hyorinmaru; when his vision was overlaid with the glints of alien colour that the dragon saw, he noticed all the ice took on bruised purplish tints, gleaming with sinister light in the corridor.

 _Corrupted_ , Hyorinmaru breathed. It had been Hitsugaya's first impression as well, though he didn't know how he'd come to it. "Why?" he asked aloud, but the great dragon fell silent. In any case, he could not afford to delay over questions.

Drawing Hyorinmaru, Hitsugaya entered the Archives. There, he found Kyoraku, zanpakuto drawn, defending against Kusaka. Kusaka, he noticed, had always been a fearlessly aggressive fighter and it showed even now. Kyoraku, on the other hand, had always been content to play a defensive fight—but he was being overwhelmed, and Hitsugaya didn't even understand how it was possible.

"Ah, Hitsugaya-kun!" Kyoraku called out in acknowledgement. Kusaka barely turned, but Hitsugaya knew from the tension in his shoulders that his former friend knew he was there.

"Give up, Kusaka," Hitsugaya said, as he moved closer to the two combatants. "You've lost."

One of Kyoraku's blades; the longer, defensive tachi swept out, even as Kusaka dodged the flurry of blows that the Captain aimed with the wakizashi. Kyoraku would normally flash-step past an opponent, but Hitsugaya noticed that Kusaka was masterfully controlling Kyoraku's off-hand; Hyorinmaru's hilt-chain wrapped tightly around Kyoraku's off-hand, temporarily yanking the other man off balance, and creating a gap in which Kusaka could strike.

Ice slicked the ground, testament to the fact that Kusaka had been employing Hyorinmaru extensively in the duel. Hitsugaya darted in, attempting to bind Kusaka's blade with his own. The two Hyorinmarus tangled and clashed; Kyoraku took advantage of Hitsugaya's attack to slash Kusaka across the chest with his tachi. But Kusaka was already twisting away, and Kyoraku's tachi dealt him only a glancing blow.

Hitsugaya followed up with a low diagonal cut aimed at Kusaka's legs, and Kusaka evaded that. He was always the better fighter, Hitsugaya thought once more, as Kusaka whirled away from his blows to strike at Kyoraku.

He was surprised at how well Kusaka employed Hyorinmaru's chain, for all he'd never gotten much practice with that aspect of Hyorinmaru's first release. But Kusaka had clearly gotten _better_ —how?—anticipating Kyoraku and Hitsugaya, playing their attacks against each other so they hampered each other, and using Hyorinmaru's chain to even the odds. It was a finesse that Hitsugaya had never expected from Kusaka, and its presence only caused him to narrow his eyes.

He felt strangely…empty.

Was he supposed to feel sorrow? Unexpected happiness at seeing Kusaka alive?

He wasn't sure. He'd spent too much time chasing Kusaka to think, too much time trying to decide about the _what_ rather than the _how_.

He staggered backwards as the pommel of Hyorinmaru met his solar plexus with astounding force, and then Kusaka shouldered him into a bookcase. Hitsugaya heard wood splinter, felt broken wood jab at him as he hit the bookcase with a large _crack!_ and the bookcase gave behind him.

Blood trickled down his side; Kusaka was barely holding his own as Kyoraku attacked him ferociously now, both blades a blur of motion.

_Could it be…_

Kusaka was laughing now, the ice all across the floor flowing like water as he spoke two words. "Hyoten Hyakkaso."

Dazed, bleeding from a good many lacerations, Hitsugaya watched as the snow began to fall.


	8. Aphelion

**VIII: APHELION**

Hyoten Hyakkaso.

He'd never even discovered the technique until he'd learned bankai, until he'd gained some control over the most basic, most primal power that Hyorinmaru afforded him.

Tenso Jurin.

Hitsugaya would never have dared to employ the technique in an enclosed space, for fear of losing control and killing someone else. He would have never dared to employ the technique except at great need, in the first place.

He'd managed to keep hold of Hyorinmaru. Even now, as the flowers of ice began sprouting all over a surprised Kyoraku's body—he'd never seen that technique, Hitsugaya had never shown it to him, even back when he was the man's Lieutenant—he tightened his grip around Hyorinmaru's hilt and clambered slowly but painfully to his feet, shedding wood splinters and fallen books with the movement.

He darted in with a two-handed swing; telegraphed from a distance, Kusaka turned to block the blow easily. He said, "I'm surprised you found your way here."

Hitsugaya gave him a cold stare as he came in with a series of lightning-fast cuts, occasionally displacing the pattern with a sword form. In the middle of basic slashes—fragments of aborted forms—an occasional sword form slipped through. Paired Sunbirds. Cat Sunning on Rocks. Eagle Rising.

He met Fanning The Reeds with Stone Lion, and turned a series of wicked curving blows that would have split him from crown to navel. Kusaka was more fluid with the transition between the classical forms and the rudiments of street fighting—more than Hitsugaya had remembered, but he was not the only one who had changed in the intervening years.

The chain caught Hitsugaya's arm, and ice began to form along the sleeve of his shihakusho; he frowned down at it, and with barely more than an exertion of will, the ice flaked off and crumbled away, though it tore his sleeve with it. He tugged against it, but could not find leverage, and Kusaka resisted the pull, aiming a slash at his collarbone.

So instead, Hitsugaya did the exact opposite: he rolled forward, beneath the blow, and struck out in a low-directed Kingfisher Spears Fish. His blade grazed Kusaka's leg, and as he regained his feet, the pommel of his sword found Kusaka's chin with a sharp _crack!_ of impact. Kusaka's head snapped back, and Hitsugaya pushed his advantage, ramming his shoulder into Kusaka's, forcing him off-balance and bearing him downwards with the unexpected force of the movement.

The chain went slack and slipped off Hyorinmaru's blade entirely. The zanpakuto, however, did not skitter from Kusaka's grasp—he managed to hang on to it, and fended Hitsugaya off with a few sharp swipes.

The last of the ice petals fell.

There was a very loud _crackle_ of flaking ice. And then in the next moment, with an explosion of reiatsu so pure and bright that Hitsugaya had to shield his eyes with the crook of his arm, the entire pillar of ice exploded outwards—no, disintegrated.

Kyoraku Shunsui stood there, reeling. The two blades of his zanpakuto were in his hand, pointing downwards at the floor. He said, "An…interesting technique…but…" Hitsugaya never did find out what he'd meant to say, because the next moment, there was the _thump_ of Kyoraku collapsing onto his face, unconscious but very much alive.

In the next moment, while Hitsugaya was distracted, Kusaka had rolled away and to his feet. He didn't bother sheathing Hyorinmaru, simply shot Hitsugaya a baleful look, and took off at a run.

Hitsugaya thought of pursuing, but instead, sheathed Hyorinmaru and went to check on Kyoraku. He knew little of healing kido, but all the field medicine he knew was enough for him to run a quick diagnostic spell on Kyoraku; the only thing he picked up on was severe spiritual energy depletion. Kyoraku's reiatsu was barely there at all, a flickering candle next to the furnace it usually was.

Harribel, too, had broken his Hyoten Hyakkaso; Hitsugaya reflected dryly that if this was the case, he should probably start employing the technique with a lot less reservations than he currently had. In any case, he could not remember if she had been as depleted as Kyoraku seemed to be from breaking the ice pillar.

He thought of getting Kyoraku to the Fourth Division, only the thought of dragging Kyoraku's inert frame all the way towards the Fourth, while possibly having to fend off shinigami who were very much in the frame of mind to shoot first and ask questions later did not appeal to him.

Kyoraku was still breathing. That was something, even though they'd failed to stop Kusaka.

A quiet worm of doubt asked: if the two of you couldn't stop Kusaka, how will you stop him? Hitsugaya ignored it. He had other things on his mind at the moment.

He held the kido spell firmly in his mind for a moment, and then spoke the words. Waited. A few moments later, a hell butterfly—from his Division, of course, none other would have likely responded to his call—fluttered up to him. Hitsugaya recited the message he wanted the creature to carry, and then dismissed it.

He didn't watch it leave. It was his time to leave as well.

* * *

Kotetsu Isane heard the flutter of dark wings overhead. She peered up, screening her eyes with her cupped hand, and saw the hell butterfly winging its way towards the first relief station that the Fourth Division had set up.

It was, nevertheless, her Captain, Unohana Retsu, who held out her finger for the butterfly to alight on. "Who could it be?" Isane muttered, and then fell silent.

Unohana paused, and seemed to go, all of a sudden, so very still as the hell butterfly communicated its message. Finally, the moment was broken; she sighed, and the butterfly flapped its wings and flew off.

"Isane," Unohana said. Isane glanced over at her Captain.

Very calmly, Unohana said, "There's been an incident at Central Forty-Six. The Captain of the Eighth Division requires immediate medical attention."

The Captain of the Eighth Division. Kyoraku Shunsui. Isane swallowed, hard, and then put aside all fear and worry the way she'd been trained to, letting the sense of healer's calm envelop her. "…I see," she said. "Captain. Do you need me?"

"I think it would be for the best," Unohana said, glancing up at the clouded skies into which the hell butterfly had departed. "Come, Isane."

* * *

Bleeding, winded, and very exhausted, Matsumoto walked among the dead and the dying. Many Hollows foundered on the ground, some pinned effectively by kido spells. They had yet to dissipate; her task now was to dispatch them swiftly.

The relief teams from the Fourth Division followed behind the secure perimeter they had established, transporting the wounded back to relief stations for attention, or dealing with those who were too wounded to be transported on the spot.

Hitomi walked beside her. Their squads had finally come across each other during a sweep. Most of the first responders had, by now, been relieved by the other squads dispatched from the Seireitei. But Matsumoto refused to leave. Most of her Division took their lead from her. It was difficult to ignore the leaden weight of responsibility in the pit of her stomach. It was _their_ Hollow bait that had been stolen, and crushed to send more than a thousand Hollows into Rukongai, by their most recent tally.

A lizard-like Hollow flicked its tongue ineffectually at her, pinned by a bakudo spell. Probably the thirty-six pillars, Matsumoto thought dispassionately. The mask was split, but not entirely so. More disabled than truly dead. Haineko was already drawn and in her hand; she released the blade and ash wrapped around the Hollow's throat until it dissipated slowly into glowing spirit particles.

There were too many of them, Matsumoto thought. The Hollow bait had drawn far too many. And for what purpose?

Hitomi said, "Tani wants to offer his resignation."

"It wasn't his fault," Matsumoto said. But of course it was. The supplies were his domain, his to regulate, and that a box of Hollow bait had gone missing wouldn't look good upon later investigation. Tani was simply anticipating the storm that would hit when it came to light that the quartermaster of the Tenth Division had been remiss in his responsibilities. She sighed, and said, "I'll talk to him after this."

This. After the clean-up. Hitomi simply nodded, weary lines etched all over her face.

The skies overhead were only beginning to clear. Matsumoto thought she saw just the faintest hint of blue. Hyorinmaru's power still sat heavily over the heavens. She almost managed to think that last without a trace of irony.

Taicho.

She wondered where he'd gone now, for it was almost certain that he'd left to take care of his grandmother, and then gone somewhere else since then. She thought about the revelation: that he'd turned out to have the same zanpakuto as this Kusaka Sojiro. In his eyes, she saw at last the nameless guilt that she'd caught momentary glimpses of, over the long passage of the years. Only now the guilt had a name. Kusaka. Kusaka Sojiro.

She heaved a great sigh. There was no knowing what her Captain planned on doing, except that he'd resigned himself to playing Kusaka's game, with no prospect of an end.

Hitomi said, "Have you seen the Captain?"

Matsumoto shot Hitomi a startled look; then realised they were now mostly alone. The medical response team behind were busy transporting and tending to the wounded. The patrolling sweepers were mostly from the Tenth Division.

"Not since this morning," Matsumoto said.

The Division closed ranks behind its own.

"The missing Hollow bait?"

"He didn't do it," Matsumoto said. Hitomi merely nodded.

"A distraction," Hitomi said, suddenly. "I'd wager it's a distraction. Most of the Gotei Thirteen are now out here…rather than in there." Matsumoto followed the direction of her gaze, to where the walls of the Seireitei stood, even though they couldn't quite be made out from here.

 _Kusaka_.

He'd snuck into the Division before, and Hitsugaya's quarters. What was one more storeroom that was, in any case, in the middle of stock-taking? Matsumoto suddenly felt a trickle of cold fear. What else had he done? Was the King's Seal still there?

"We'll need to thoroughly check the Division," she began to say to Hitomi, before she sensed it, then. The air rippled before her, and then she heard Isane's voice, as though the tall Lieutenant had been standing beside her.

"This is a message to all officers of the Gotei Thirteen: be on your guard. Captain Kyoraku Shunsui has just been discovered, out of commission, in the Archives of the Central Forty-Six compound. There is no sign of his attacker."

The message ended as abruptly as it had begun; a sending from the kido spell Tenteikura. Matsumoto glanced sharply at Hitomi who was already nodding.

"A distraction," Hitomi repeated, simply.

The only question was: why hadn't Kyoraku been killed?

* * *

Hitsugaya found a small storehouse in which to hide and think. His lacerations were mostly minor, and the bleeding had already mostly stopped. A massive bruise was beginning to form from where he'd slammed into the bookcase, and he knew he was soon going to be stiff.

He wondered if Unohana would tell them about the ice in the Archives. If she had, they would soon be after him again. He sighed, rested his head against the wooden walls of the storehouse. He didn't even know what the rules of the game were, and it was hardly a surprise that Kusaka was besting him easily. He had probably been planning this over a long time.

He carefully cleaned Hyorinmaru as best as he could, shredding the other sleeve of his shihakusho. There was little water, but a trace of ice had the zanpakuto in decent condition again. The soothing movements of damp cloth on steel laid out over his lap relaxed him, if only for a short while.

Kusaka definitely knew bankai. It was a conclusion he had to reach from their fight in the Archives. How else did Kusaka know Hyoten Hyakkaso? Even jinzen, the meditation shinigami performed with their zanpakuto in order to better commune with the blade and to learn new techniques from their zanpakuto would not have resulted in Hyorinmaru revealing Hyoten Hyakkaso to Kusaka, not without the level of mastery only obtainable through bankai.

But Kusaka had not yet released his bankai, and Hitsugaya could only surmise it was for the same reasons he'd been so readily struck down when he first crossed blades with Aizen. There were many reasons, some of which were his own inexperience, and the potent powers of Aizen's zanpakuto, Kyoka Suigetsu. But there was a good deal of it attributable to the fact that Hyorinmaru was best wielded in an open space. Confined quarters cramped mobility, and rendered Hyorinmaru less than effective.

That was the problem, Hitsugaya thought, scowling. Kusaka demonstrated an understanding of Hyorinmaru that he couldn't have yet come to. Or had he? There was something off about that, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. And there was the part where the ice was now somehow corrupted, a dark purple to the dragon's eyes. Something wasn't quite right here, but try as he might, Hitsugaya couldn't yet see how it all added up.

Kusaka had tried for Kyoraku. How had he known that Kyoraku would have gone for the Archives? There was another thing that didn't make sense to Hitsugaya. He hadn't any luck locating Kyoraku, until Kusaka had released Hyorinmaru in the fight, and then he'd only stumbled upon them by following the thread of Hyorinmaru's reiatsu. Narumi and Kahei had appeared premeditated, but now Hitsugaya was wondering if something else was at work here. Opportunity? But that too was problematic. To kill Kahei, Kusaka would have had to infiltrate the Academy. That took more planning than blind opportunism.

What if it was the other way around, Hitsugaya wondered. What if Kusaka _had_ intended to kill Kahei, but had stumbled across Narumi and then tailed him home and killed him?

It had been luck, Hitsugaya decided. That was what didn't make sense. Whatever the case for Narumi and Kahei, Kusaka had been doing something else entirely when he ran into Kyoraku at the Archives and engaged him. It had been opportunity, rather than an intent to kill Kyoraku, bit he'd seized the opportunity all the same.

But what had Kusaka been doing at the Central Forty-Six?

There, the chain of reasoning stretched and reached its end.

* * *

Book tucked under her arm, Nanao barely controlled herself as she sat outside the room where Captain Unohana and Lieutenant Isane were treating her Captain. _You should never have left him_ , she thought, clutching on to the book like a lifeline. He'd said he had something he had to see too, only he'd been ambushed and left for dead.

_What was it, Captain?_

She wondered if it had been worth it.

"Nanao?"

Isane stood, outside the treatment room. Isane always looked nervous, Nanao thought. Surely this wasn't anything different? "He's recovering," Isane said, and the hand clenched around Nanao's heart relinquished its iron fist and suddenly she could breathe again. "But Nanao…"

"Yes?"

"You can visit him only for a short while. He hasn't yet woken up, and he needs his rest. And…" Isane's hesitation was visible. She finally said, "They found ice in the Archives."

Nanao dipped her head in a quick nod of acknowledgement. "I see. Thank you, Isane."

* * *

After some time, the storehouse door creaked open, letting in a little fresh air. Hitsugaya looked up, and then thought about how fast it would take him to draw Hyorinmaru from an assumed kneeling stance. He decided it wasn't worth the bother.

"How did you find me?"

Kusaka hadn't drawn Hyorinmaru either. He walked into the storehouse, closing the door lightly behind him. He said, "You're not as difficult to find as you think."

Hitsugaya grunted, and made room as Kusaka navigated the aisles of crates with ease. The Eleventh Division almost never did stocktake, Hitsugaya thought. It was just about disgraceful how much dust there was in here, and he fought off a brewing sneeze.

"What do you want?"

"I came to talk. Is that so hard to believe?"

"Yes. How did you survive?"

In the darkness, he saw it again: the ruin of Kusaka's head, the fragments of Hyorinmaru, shattered, blood and gore splattered all over his arm and his Academy uniform. He'd only been a fifth year, Hitsugaya thought. He'd _only_ been a fifth year, and very much a boy.

He dropped the grume-splattered rock, watched it bounce on the grass, and tried to wipe away the smears of pink on the wet grass, on his uniform, anything to get rid of the stains. White fractured bone showed—Kusaka's skull, he thought. Kusaka's violet eyes stared upwards, unseeing. He would never get rid of the stains.

He had an eidetic memory. Even then, Hitsugaya knew that he would never forget this scene, this quiet night, so long as he lived.

He blinked to shatter the unwanted memory. He barely made out the traces of Kusaka's secretive smile, in the darkness. Kusaka said, "You should know."

"I killed you." He turned his face aside to the wooden panelling of the wall. His eyes had mostly adjusted to the lack of light now; Hitsugaya could make out where one plank met another, and even the grain of the wood.

He wondered if that was his punishment; the memory of that silent clearing, so long as he lived, and Kusaka's return, now. Even when Soul Society spoke of the balance of souls, nothing of this sort was supposed to happen. The dead were reborn in the world of the living, and undertook new lives, and everything from the past was washed away, forgotten. Kusaka could not have _been_ , even had he died sometime after his rebirth.

He could not have remembered. He could not have learned bankai.

"You did. _Tensai_."

The name, sometimes a teasing joke, sometimes a taunt, fell dead in the air between them.

"They're dead. All of them," Hitsugaya said.

"Who?"

"Central Forty-Six. Aizen slaughtered all of them. The blood was dried, and they were beginning to decay by the time I found the bodies…it wasn't pleasant. But he beat you to it. They're all dead. Killing them serves no purpose."

Kusaka gave him a look best described as puzzled incomprehension, before he broke into a laugh that brought about pangs of pain in Hitsugaya's heart. "You thought I was going to kill them? Don't be silly. I thought even you would have known better by now. No," he said once more, "I do not plan to kill them."

"Narumi?"

Kusaka snorted; when he next spoke, his voice was laced with contempt. "Don't tell me you cared about that arrogant little shit."

"No," Hitsugaya admitted, and he was proud of his success in keeping his voice even, "But killing a disagreeable officer is not the way of the Gotei Thirteen."

"And pitting two half-trained young boys against each other is?" Kusaka retorted.

"We were hardly half-trained," Hitsugaya shot back, more on reflex than anything else. They hadn't been prepared, he knew, and he didn't think anything could or should have prepared someone for the act of ending the life of your his friend. "That's beside the point. What about Kahei?"

"He folded his hands," Kusaka said, "And told the Central Forty-Six."

"His hands were _tied_ ," Hitsugaya snapped. And he understood that feeling now, the frustration of finding out there was absolutely _nothing_ you could do except to watch the train-wreck happen, which must have been what Kahei had done, as headmaster. Except he had chosen to fight back, to break the rules of Soul Society and then ask for permission later when he had tried to stop Kuchiki Rukia's execution.

There was something important about this, he knew, some insight to what drove Kusaka, if he could just find the small, definite kernel hidden in the centre of this.

"You never meant to kill Kyoraku, did you?"

Kusaka said, "What do you think?"

"He got in your way," Hitsugaya guessed. "And so you tried to kill him. You were planning something else, and you encountered him."

Kusaka's eyes narrowed. He said, "Maybe."

Hitsugaya pressed home his advantage. "You were planning something else. What's your game then, Kusaka?"

"You should know…" Kusaka murmured, with a sly smile. "Or perhaps you haven't been paying very much attention…Captain of the Tenth Division." He paused. "I'd always wanted to join the Tenth Division, you know. Internal investigations seemed more interesting to me than the cases the Ninth dealt in. And here you are."

"Trust me," Hitsugaya said, "They aren't as interesting as they seem." Mistakes got those close to you killed. Mistakes resulted in a foot of steel in Hinamori's chest, in the taste of blood in his mouth. Falling and failing time and again. One of his biggest failures, he thought. That should never have happened. But there was no going back. There never was.

Kusaka snorted. "Easy for you to say."

"More than that," Hitsugaya said. "What happened…? You wanted to become a Lieutenant. A Captain. You were talking about being the next from Rukongai, shaking things up. Shaking all of those old men running things of their complacency. You wanted to _change the world_." He said it, as if by bitterness and forcefulness, he could somehow have the answer out of Kusaka. Maybe he already knew the answer.

"Yes," Kusaka said softly. "I did, didn't I? What happened? I died. It changes your perspective."

Hitsugaya looked down at his hands. He said, for want of something else to say, "For old time's sake, Kusaka. You can leave Soul Society. I'll make sure they won't follow you. You can leave all this." The last thing he could do to wrench them away from the blood-soaked path they had once walked before, before the cycle could repeat and the killing could begin again.

But Kusaka was shaking his head. "It's too late for me, old friend," he said, bitterly. "Still, I'll give you the same offer."

"You know I can't," Hitsugaya said, and he did know, although he hadn't wanted to admit it, that Kusaka would have said the same thing. The dragon was stubborn, if anything else. And then he added, for no particular reason, "Then you must know that I'll stop you." It had been, until this moment, a real temptation. To join Kusaka, or to at least walk away. Until he thought of friends and Granny and all the people he cared about, people who depended on him. Matsumoto and his Division. No, he thought, it had never really been a choice he could have taken.

The darkness reflected back Kusaka's pitying smile, in a dozen dizzying fragments. "Oh, of course you will," Kusaka said. "You'll try, even if it kills you."


	9. Minstrel Boy

**IX: MINSTREL BOY**

Though they had never formally declared it, the truce lasted until sunrise. Hitsugaya was too tired to stay awake through most of the night; he'd dozed off at some point in time, and only jerked awake when he heard the sound of voices outside the storeroom.

He cast around him blearily. Where was…no. He sensed it even before he saw that Kusaka had departed sometime in the night.

"…damn Captain wants us to get it over and done with…"

Instantly, the fog of sleep fled. Hitsugaya carefully gripped Hyorinmaru's hilt as he listened. Had Zaraki's men chosen this time to do a stocktake? He scuttled back, until the wall was pressing into his back. There was only one way out of this storeroom, he realised, and that would be fighting his way past Zaraki's men.

"Tell him to shove off," someone said.

"Tell the Captain to shove off? I'd like to see you do it. He usually gives us more time to…"

There was a thud, as if a series of heavy objects had been set down, and none too gently. "…get a drink," someone said.

Cautiously, Hitsugaya stretched and picked up Hyorinmaru. Securing Hyorinmaru to the sash he customarily used, he shifted slowly and carefully up to the door and listened.

A grunt. "Lucky you."

"Come on, the Captain doesn't care if you drink on the job."

"With the mood he's in? I'm not the one who wants to become target practise for the fish."

"Suit yourself."

"Damn straight I'll suit myself."

Hitsugaya heard the sound of footsteps approaching the door. He pitched his voice in a low approximation of the lazy officer's voice. "You're too scared, is all."

"Hmmph. Easy for _you_ to say."

"Never fancied you a member of the Fourth myself, but from the sound of it…"

"The Fourth? Go on then! I bloody _dare_ you! Look who had the better zanjutsu record, you son of a stinking coward!"

There was a startled cry, and then the sound of clashing steel. "Loser goes to the Fourth!"

"Fine by me!"

Hitsugaya sighed, and wasn't sure if it was more in exasperation or relief. If there was anything that could be counted on, he thought, it was Zaraki's men picking fights at the drop of a hat.

Judging from the flares of reiatsu, these were seated officers, and not particularly highly-ranking ones. Hitsugaya supposed that made sense—Zaraki had never put very much stock in administrative jobs, in any case. Tasks that normally went to senior-ranking officers in other Divisions tended to go to the lowest in the Eleventh.

In the same way, in _any_ other Division, he could have counted on the officer protesting he'd never said anything insulting. It seemed that in the Eleventh, the prospect of a fight had pretty much washed all questions of how or why it was starting out of the officers' minds.

As the two seated officers fought on, Hitsugaya pushed open the door and walked out. His stride was purposeful, unhurried, as though he belonged there. Neither of them paid him any attention at all as he turned a corner, and then was gone from sight.

* * *

There was only one place left to go, Hitsugaya thought, and it wasn't home.

He knew the Fifth Division almost as well as his own. He'd made countless visits, some invited by Hinamori, others, trying to see how she was coping. The cold part of him had known, even then, that he was supposed to _know_ and do a better job of knowing this time if Aizen had left any traps behind for them, that they'd be lulled into complacency by the defections, lulled into thinking Aizen hadn't left any spies or traitors in their midst.

It was for his own sake, as much as anything else, that he watched and did nothing.

But it was over now, and Hitsugaya thought that while Aizen had been imprisoned, they were fairly confident in how securely he had been locked away, to the point that nobody was really questioning if Aizen had been behind the murders.

He gained the roof of one of the barracks, and paused there, surveying the grounds. Hinamori's sentries had been anything but sloppy. However, it was difficult for them to catch sight of a shinigami Captain who didn't want to be seen. Particularly one who was _good_ at this sort of thing. The Fourth Division was next to the Fifth, and he noticed the patrolling guards on the grounds. Were there more of them? It seemed so. He wouldn't have expected any less. Security would have been tighter, in case Kyoraku's nameless attacker attempted to finish the job.

He reflected that they probably thought it was him, and that if Kyoraku hadn't yet woken up, it would probably be the case that they would be happy to run him through.

So it was that Hitsugaya carefully surveyed the ground and considered his approach. There were too many guards on the grounds, he thought. Positively thick with them. He would have to approach by the roofs. He could see one or two dark shapes on the roofing, which meant he would have to take them out silently to avoid an outcry.

A running flash-step brought him to the next roof, and then along the branches of a tall tree overhanging the grounds of the Fourth Division. He tested it to make sure it could bear his weight, and then moved on, quickly and as quietly as possible, aware that too much rustling of the leaves could betray his presence to the shinigami on the ground.

An owl hooted; for a heart-stopping moment, Hitsugaya almost lost his balance, but managed to catch himself in time. Heart hammering, he froze stock-still, listening out. There was no sound from below, no sign he had betrayed himself. Hitsugaya had always had a good head for heights, but he was aware that the night wind was cooling a thin layer of cold sweat.

Finally, the next flash-step brought him onto the low roof of a neighbouring building. Hitsugaya didn't dare to stop here. The waning moon would bring him within sight of the patrolling sentries. Quick-footed and sure, he dashed onto the roof of the next building. At the same time, he tried to sense Kyoraku's reiatsu—

"Who—"

Hitsugaya drove his elbow into the startled sentry's throat. "Bakudo first spell," he hissed, "Sai!" He threw his power into the sharply focused thrust of the spell, binding the sentry. Sloppy, Hitsugaya thought. He'd almost been caught. Kido was chancy, and he only hoped no sentry had sensed the spell. The sentry's eyes glared at him, and he knew that the man would build up his reiatsu and attempt to break the spell the first chance he got. The build-up of reiatsu, too, would cause an alert. Hitsugaya placed the man in a chokehold, and counted to ten before he released his grip. The sentry went limp, and Hitsugaya laid him out on the roof before he continued on his way.

Then, he sensed familiar reiatsu below.

Ukitake Jushiro walked out of the shadow cast by the building. He looked up.

Their eyes met.

Hitsugaya knew that Ukitake had sensed him, or had seen him. He froze, wondering if that meant a fight. Ukitake had seemed to believe him, but this was before Kyoraku had been attacked, and he knew that Kyoraku and Ukitake had been close.

A flash-step brought Ukitake up onto the roof. "I'll take him," Ukitake said, and then and only then, Hitsugaya allowed himself to relax. Ukitake's eyes were knowing, if a little sad. "Go. He's waiting for you."

"How—"

"Hitsugaya-taicho," Ukitake said, "Time is not on your side. Shunsui is in the main building. Third window from the left. You'll need to drop in carefully or the sentry will catch you. And do be careful of Lieutenant Ise."

Hitsugaya nodded curtly, saving the questions for another time. "Ukitake?"

Ukitake was already shouldering the dead-weight of the unconscious sentry. "Thank you."

"Go, Hitsugaya-taicho," Ukitake repeated.

Hitsugaya went.

* * *

The sentry on the ground was easily dodged, now that Hitsugaya knew where Kyoraku was. He moved, focused and swift, pausing to avoid the patrols, and carefully lowered himself down from the roof and swung into the room from the open window.

Kyoraku was dozing upright in bed, head leaning back against the wall, or so Hitsugaya thought, but his eyes opened a few seconds after Hitsugaya had entered the room.

"Ah, Hitsugaya-kun!" he said cheerfully. "I was thinking you would drop by."

"Ukitake told me where to look."

"Yes, yes, I've just spoken to Jushiro," Kyoraku said, and he really didn't look quite the same without his straw hat. "Pull up a chair, will you? Make yourself home."

Hitsugaya pulled up the visitor's chair and set down, glancing at the door as he did so. "My Nanao-chan comes in every once in a while," Kyoraku said, guessing the meaning of that glance, "So I suggest we finish this before she comes. Angry women are scary eh, Hitsugaya-kun?"

Hitsugaya thought of an enraged Hinamori, and couldn't help but agree.

"The Archives," Hitsugaya said. "Why were you there?"

"There is only one place in Soul Society not subject to purges," Kyoraku said, simply. "And that is the Central Forty-Six Archives. All records, whether for good or for ill, of decisions made by the Central Forty-Six, by the Gotei Thirteen…they are all to be kept in the Archives. Part of the duty of the Eighth Division is to guard the Archives, as you may remember. But it is the duty of the Captain of the Eighth Division to watch…and to carefully update the Archives. A surprisingly lucid move on the part of Central Forty-Six, if you think about it. But nonetheless, everything must be included."

"So you watch," Hitsugaya said. "And you chronicle everything?"

Kyoraku smiled. "Hitsugaya-kun, I won't insult your intelligence. But surely you were my Lieutenant for long enough to know that more was going on with the Eighth Division?"

Hitsugaya thought about the Tenth Division, and the role he had been playing, and he said, "I suppose." He wondered how many other Captains had this: duties that were generally well-kept secrets in Soul Society, and wondered—

"I know about a good many secrets," Kyoraku added, "But in any case, my records were primarily of the Gotei Thirteen. In addition, Central Forty-Six has other ways of enforcing ancient laws. I first went to the Archives because it seemed strange to me that the ice left behind was unmistakeably from Hyorinmaru…I wanted to search for instances where a two shinigami had the same zanpakuto. After all, it seemed just as possible that one shinigami had a zanpakuto that manifested in two swords…" he gave a nod to where Katen Kyokotsu lay, propped up against the far wall.

"And you found Kusaka."

"Yes. The records spoke of the ancient law…and cross-referencing it brought up the last time Central Forty-Six had been confronted with such a case. You and Kusaka Sojiro. Then it all made sense."

"I don't understand," Hitsugaya admitted, puzzled. "I killed him. But he came back. And now there's something he's after…but not revenge. But he attacked you. But if all you were doing was researching on the ancient law and Central Forty-Six…"

Kyoraku's eyes gleamed as he leaned forward. "The ancient law, Hitsugaya-kun. Why does it exist?"

Hitsugaya frowned, racking his memory. "Because two shinigami cannot have the same zanpakuto."

"Cannot?"

"Are not permitted to," Hitsugaya clarified. _Laws have reasons, Hitsugaya_ , Kahei said, in his head. _Before you would change a law, know the reason_ _ **why**_ _the law exists._ "No," he said, almost in response to the half-forgotten lesson. "I don't know."

"Because two shinigami," Kyoraku repeated, echoing Hitsugaya's words, " _Cannot_ have the same zanpakuto."

Hitsugaya found himself shifting in his own seat. "You're saying that it's not possible for two shinigami to have the same zanpakuto?" Kyoraku nodded. "But how?" He had the same zanpakuto as Kusaka. They had been pitted against each other, made to fight to the death for the right to command Hyorinmaru. How was it not possible? They _had done so._

"The truth, Hitsugaya-kun," Kyoraku said, "Is that Kusaka Sojiro never existed." He looked slightly uncomfortable.

"It's not possible," Hitsugaya said.

"Think about it," Kyoraku continued. "A zanpakuto is part of its wielder's soul. A manifestation of yourself. Your power."

"But a separate agent," Hitsugaya corrected. "Zanpakuto may oppose their wielders. They may choose to add their power to that of their wielder." Almost unintentionally, he gazed at the daisho pair Katen Kyokotsu manifested as, in sealed form. Kyoraku noticed, and grinned.

"Well, that, yes," he admitted. "But that doesn't matter. You were too young when you came to us, and asked to be enrolled in the Academy. You were too young for that kind of power. So it was leaking."

Hitsugaya found himself casting about for something, anything to hold on to. Kusaka had been born in Rukongai, he told himself. He had been, like Hitsugaya, another student studying on sponsorship, save that Kusaka had been sponsored by the Academy. How could a manifestation create _that?_

"Have you ever wondered," Kyoraku said, into the silence, "Why you mastered bankai so early?"

Stung, Hitsugaya murmured, "I worked hard."

"I know."

"I worked at it," he repeated. "Worked at understanding Hyorinmaru. At building a connection with him."

"I know," Kyoraku said again. "But manifesting Hyorinmaru. That was the easy part, wasn't it?"

Finally, Hitsugaya nodded grudgingly. "As if," he said quietly, "Hyorinmaru wanted to be made manifest."

"Because you had already manifested a part of your soul," Kyoraku said. "Kusaka Sojiro was your creation. Your fiction. You needed someone else to bear a part of that power. Not all shinigami do this," he continued, "Manifesting another being and pouring out part of their power into them. But you did. _This_ is why the ancient law exists, Hitsugaya-kun. Because any shinigami whose power is so split can never achieve all of their promise."

Hitsugaya saw, in a flash of insight. It was like battling one's zanpakuto spirit, he thought. The dark side of the shinigami, the practices that were called the 'ancient ways' by teachers in Academies in classes where students learned courtesies and etiquette and ritual, just as they learned the killing arts. It was part of the heritage of the shinigami still red in tooth and claw, born from the days when shinigami used everything they had to battle the tide of Hollows, often descending to the law of the jungle themselves. The strongest, fittest candidates survived. The weak were tossed aside, devoured by Hollows.

This was the ancient law, a practice that hailed back to such cruel times when the shinigami needed the strongest sword-arms they could get.

Everyone knew that this current generation of the Gotei Thirteen was weaker than the first. The first were revered as an entire tier of strength that had been lost to the current Gotei Thirteen. Hitsugaya thought he understood better now, thought he saw the same sentiment in Kyoraku's laid-back demeanour, in the compassion in Ukitake's eyes.

They weren't _better_. They were different. Weaker, perhaps. But kinder.

That wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

But that was the reasoning behind the ancient law, nonetheless. It was the same idea behind jinzen, behind battling one's zanpakuto spirit to grow stronger, and even today, they did both of that. A weak shinigami simply died in battle with his zanpakuto. Battle was the training grounds from which the strong emerged, the crucible by which shinigami were tested and emerged either stronger and victorious, or dead. There was little, if any, middle ground.

If the shinigami could destroy his own manifestation, then he was worthy of wielding the power he had once divorced from himself. If he died, it was too bad, and the manifestation was clearly more worthy. Hitsugaya saw that now. Central Forty-Six had been willing to sacrifice him, if he had proven to be the lesser in his combat with Kusaka.

And now they were paying for it.

"And the purge?" Hitsugaya wanted to know. "What about the purge?"

Kyoraku sighed heavily. "If the one who lost was a manifestation…" he said, "He had very little material presence in the world to begin with…and they saw no harm in removing him entirely from the records, since he should have never been."

"Kusaka was born in the fifth district of Rukongai," Hitsugaya said sharply. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, as if the bottom of it had dropped out under him completely.

Kyoraku did not leave him with even that illusion. "There is no record of Kusaka Sojiro," Kyoraku said, "Before he attended the Academy. Not in any census, not by any shinigami purifying a soul. It seemed too perfect. And then I realised: it was. It was your reiatsu we found, at every single murder scene, because Kusaka Sojiro had never existed."

Hitsugaya frowned. "But that's not true," he said, slowly, even as he took in Kyoraku's words. "It wasn't my reiatsu at the murders. It's Kusaka's. Our reiatsu aren't the same. I could tell."

Kyoraku frowned. "That's not possible," he said now, repeating Hitsugaya's earlier words. But before he could say anything else, the door flew open, and an indignant Ise Nanao stood in the door way.

"Bakudo first spell, Sai!" she shouted.

"Danku!" Kyoraku barked, before Hitsugaya could respond. The shimmering wall slammed down between them and Nanao, blocking the binding spell before it could take effect. But Kyoraku's reiatsu had barely recovered, and now it fluctuated drastically.

Without waiting to be told, Hitsugaya hurled himself out of the window. He hit the ground, rolled and left at a run. Kyoraku was probably delaying Nanao for as long as he could, perhaps explaining things. Hitsugaya wasn't sure which, but he knew he needed to get away as fast as he could before they could pin him down on the Fourth Division grounds.

In his haste, he darted by a group of sentries rounding a corner; they roared and charged after him. Ise had probably raised the alert by now; so much for hiding, he thought sardonically. He pulled his scabbarded zanpakuto from his back and waded in to meet them, assuming a guard position. Hanging Willow was always good against multiple opponents, and at this point in time, he wasn't keen on harming more shinigami.

He parried an overhand, and thrust his zanpakuto in a low River Sweeps. The blunt end of the scabbard rammed a shinigami in the ribs and his recovery blow swept the man off his feet. One down, four to go. The second attempted a Farmer in the Rice Fields on him; Hitsugaya turned the blow aside with a solid block and then grabbed the man and flung him with a hip throw. The last three decided to take him on together, which might have been the smartest decision they had made. They fought as a team; the third harried him whenever he struck at the fourth, and the fifth made sure he had difficulty finding enough space to manoeuvre in. That meant Hitsugaya couldn't employ any of those wide, sweeping blows that were his signature move in battle. He flipped over a low sweep, slid below a high block and slammed the flat of his blade into the torso of the fourth man. A kicked pebble had the fifth stumbling, and then the pommel of Hyorinmaru found the head of the fourth attacker, and then Hitsugaya turned to face the last two.

Third and fifth had both recovered and advanced cautiously on him. "Hado first spell, Sho!' Hitsugaya chanted, taking one hand off Hyorinmaru's hilt to cast the kido spell. It flung one of the men aside like a rag doll, slamming him against the tree with a sickening _crack!_ and Hitsugaya hoped he hadn't killed the man but it was too late to do anything but to meet the third's attack as he came in.

The third was the most skilled swordsman of the lot, flowing from form to form with a fluidity that would have impressed his instructors back at the Academy. He was less than educated in the brutal, primitive patterns of front-line combat, however, and that showed as he barely anticipated the punches and grabs and holds Hitsugaya added in between sword strokes without breaking the flow of the fight. He had to end this soon before the other patrols noticed.

Hitsugaya blocked a Flowing River cut with Hawk Gliding, then shifted from that to Crane Stretches Its Wings. Third blocked that with an almost contemptuous Serpent Bares Its Fangs, but Hitsugaya was already dodging, a quick flash-step bringing him behind the man's guard and allowing him to catch the shinigami in a joint-lock. He twisted and turned the lock into a shoulder throw, ending up with the man on the ground. He bent and put the man in a choke hold. Only when Third went unconscious did Hitsugaya flee.

By the time the other patrols had noticed the disruption and came running to investigate, Hitsugaya had long gone.

* * *

Ukitake returned to the Thirteenth Division, made himself a cup of warm herbal tea, and waited. The warmth soothed his throat, and the spate of coughs. He pressed a handkerchief to his mouth, used to the ebbs and flows of his illness by now.

He set out a second cup, gave Kiyone and Sentaro instructions that he was not to be disturbed, and they should take a rest, and then settled in to wait. It was a rather beautiful night, Ukitake thought, cool and mostly cloudless. He would have gone to the Ugendo quarters, watched the waning moon reflected in the still pond waters, and fed the koi, but he knew that his visitor would not think to find him there.

So Ukitake waited. It was an easy task for a man as old as he was, and time and illness had diligently instilled him with great patience.

A flutter of dark robes at the doorway. He had sensed the waiting presence, a sense born of experience, alertness, an awareness as to when the quality of the shadows before the doorframe had deepened rather than through any sort of reiatsu, even before his guest thought to make himself known. "Ah, come on in, Hitsugaya-taicho. There's a fresh batch of herbal tea here."

Hitsugaya Toshiro carefully moved out from behind the doorframe. Bright teal eyes were shadowed with wariness. He said, "You were expecting me, I take it."

Ukitake beckoned to the seat before him, at the low table. Hitsugaya crossed the floor in a few graceful strides and seated himself. He unfastened Hyorinmaru and laid the sword out beside him, in easy reach. The blade, Ukitake thought sadly, that was at the heart of the trouble now plaguing Soul Society.

"You spoke to Shunsui?"

"I have."

Ukitake smiled. "Tea?"

Hitsugaya looked at him, and then nodded. Ukitake reached for the teapot first, and poured.

"You spoke to him too, didn't you?" Hitsugaya asked, watching Ukitake with those tired, tired eyes.

"I did," Ukitake said. He poured more tea for himself, and then set the teapot back in its proper place.

"So you know, then."

"Yes."

Ukitake sipped at his tea. A rather good blend for autumn, he concluded, pale and light, the way he liked it, with only a note or two of lingering aroma on the tongue. He had to remember ask the family herbalist to recommend a different one when the winter months came.

Hitsugaya didn't ask why the other Captains didn't know, why they were keeping it to themselves, or what Ukitake planned to do about it. Being a Captain of the Gotei Thirteen, Ukitake knew, came with a sense of responsibility. Young Hitsugaya was, in any case, very disposed to take matters into his own hands. He would not leave Kusaka Sojiro to someone else.

"I need someone who can help me," Hitsugaya finally stated. He stared down at his cup of tea, and drank from it, and then murmured faint praise for the blend. His mind was otherwise preoccupied.

Ukitake hardly blinked. "Come, Hitsugaya-taicho. The pavilion around the Hall of Rains is quiet. We will not be overheard there." He rose first. Despite his briskness, Hitsugaya was too polite to leave the cup empty. He drained it to the dregs, and then rose as well, picking up Hyorinmaru.

Ukitake left Sogyo no Kotowari on the zanpakuto stand. He did not expect to be intercepted in his own Division. In that, he was right.

* * *

Ukitake wandered to the edge of the pavilion, feeding the carp. Hitsugaya watched, surprised at how peaceful Ukitake looked. Ukitake glanced over at him, and looked mildly embarrassed. "Ah, apologies, Hitsugaya-taicho. I spend a lot of time here, feeding the carp."

"I can see that."

"But Kusaka Sojiro. We were talking about him."

"Kyoraku said that Kusaka Sojiro…that I manifested him, somehow. The way you would manifest your zanpakuto spirit."

"Almost," Ukitake murmured, "But not quite. Nevertheless, the idea is there."

"He knows what I know," Hitsugaya said, bluntly. "What I'm planning."

"Ah," Ukitake managed. He turned and gazed at Hitsugaya for a moment. " _That_ I am not so certain of, Hitsugaya-kun."

"But it explains a great deal. Why Kusaka knew bankai—or at least techniques that Hyorinmaru would only have revealed to him after bankai. Why he knew how to infiltrate my Division, using knowledge only I would have had…or how he knew Kyoraku's fighting style, enough to anticipate and fight against him on almost equal terms…"

"I had wondered," Ukitake said at last. "Kyoraku had mentioned the surprising skill of his attacker."

"The only thing I don't know," Hitsugaya murmured, mostly to himself, "How exactly did he come back?"

Ukitake gave a small, almost embarrassed cough. "That was bound to happen sooner or later," he said.

Hitsugaya glanced sharply at him. "What do you mean, Ukitake?" he finally asked.

"The King's Seal," Ukitake explained. "How much do you know about it?"

"The Seal has some powers," Hitsugaya said immediately. "Which is classified information, so I don't know anything about that. The Seal itself is imbued with a good deal of the Soul King's power, there's no doubt about that. Perhaps even enough to reshape Soul Society."

"Yes," Ukitake said. "That is one of the many possibilities. The King's Seal is…imbued, as you say, with a great amount of power. The Seal itself serves a ceremonial role, as you are no doubt aware of. Used on documents produced by the Central Forty-Six as authorised by the Soul King to govern Soul Society. But there are…other purposes."

"Such as?"

"The Seal breaks boundaries," Ukitake said. "Not in the way we thought the Hogyoku did. The Seal…reshapes reality to do so. It breaks all known laws of nature, because as an artefact imbued with the powers of the Soul King, it is not bound by such laws. In the hands of a trained wielder, the Seal can rewrite history itself. It is one of the many things the King's Seal can do."

Hitsugaya inhaled sharply in surprise. "But if the Seal is so powerful," he said, "Then why didn't Aizen take it?"

Ukitake smiled, gentle and chiding. He said, "Hisugaya-taicho. What makes you think he didn't?"

"But—"

"He didn't take the Seal," Ukitake said. "But he tried to use it. During his time in Soul Society, the Fifth Division came in possession of the Seal. As far as I can trace, Aizen attempted to use the Seal. How else do you think he reached the absolute apex of his growth potential as a shinigami in slightly more than a hundred years?"

Hitsugaya managed, "I see. And the Seal…brought Kusaka back?"

"As far as I can guess, yes. You had already manifested Kusaka once."

"Why?"

"Only you can answer that, Hitsugaya-taicho," Ukitake said. There was a glint of something in his eyes. Hitsugaya looked away first. "You said you needed my help?"

"Yes," Hitsugaya said, woodenly. "I need your assistance."

* * *

Hitsugaya woke up with a start. Disoriented, he glanced around at his surroundings. Where was he? He remembered…what did he remember?

"Ukitake!" he exclaimed aloud, but was rewarded by silence. He'd gone to the Thirteenth Division to find Ukitake and he'd fallen asleep shortly after in the Ugendo pavilion.

He moved to the edge of the wooden platform, knelt, and with a murmured apology, though he didn't know whether it was to Ukitake or the shimmering-scaled koi fish that swam in the silvered waters, splashed a handful of water over his face. He sluiced a second handful, before he felt more awake than he'd previously been. He glanced down at the figure in the water. Harried, hair out of its customary spikes, he almost didn't recognise his own reflection. Tentatively, he traced dark smudges of exhaustion beneath his eyes, and the long scratch that had narrowly missed his left eye. Funny. He hadn't even remembered taking that blow.

He was so, so weary.

He almost missed the crackle of paper. He reached into the inner pocket of his shihakusho, and pulled out the two letters. His gaze fell on the first. He knew what he had to do.

* * *

"Matsumoto!" Matsumoto stirred and woke up to her Captain shaking her and calling her name. Except that wasn't right, she thought woozily. Why wasn't he wearing his haori? And then she woke up—really woke up—and blinked awake. He wasn't wearing his haori because…

"Taicho," she said, "Why aren't you wearing your haori?"

Hitsugaya's eyebrows were drawn together with impatience. "Matsumoto," he said, "If you are awake enough to ask me questions, you are awake enough to keep this." He handed her a sealed letter, with her name written on it in the neat brush strokes that she had come to recognise as her Captain's.

"Wow, Captain, you even had the time to write me a letter? How sweet!" she managed.

"Don't read it until I leave," he said curtly. "It's important."

"Why?" she asked.

He looked at her, and lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "It's important," he said again, and she saw that he was clutching a second letter in his hand. He noticed, and shifted it before she could make out anything more than characters which seemed to spell out his name on the cover.

"Taicho, what's that?"

"Matsumoto," Hitsugaya said, "I don't have very much time. When I leave, it is important that you read the letter. Immediately after I leave. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Captain," Matsumoto said. She added, "You should take your haori."

"Hmm?"

"You're going to stop him," she said. "Kusaka. Well, you're not just doing this as yourself, Taicho. You never are. You're doing this as the Captain of the Tenth Division. That's why I'm obeying your orders. Because you're my Captain. Well, you shouldn't have stopped wearing that haori. You never stopped being the Captain of the Tenth Division. You owe the haori more respect than that. Sir."

"I…" he began. He'd shed the haori because it made it easier for him to move around Soul Society. Now, and in the clear steady light of Matsumoto's gaze, he wondered if that had been the only reason. Or if he had felt that he shouldn't have confronted Kusaka in the haori, just another symbol of the establishment that had caused them both so much pain.

But she was right. He was more than Hitsugaya Toshiro the person. He raised his sword as the Captain of the Tenth Division, and if he died, it would be as the Captain of the Tenth Division. Soul Society commanded his loyalty, and duty was the word he now had to live by. Part of it, he shouldered gladly. Duty to his subordinates. To Matsumoto. Sometimes, it felt as though it would crush him, such as when he was commanded to sit by as Kuchiki Rukia was about to be executed for no good reason.

He hadn't even thought of reclaiming his haori, now, when he knew what he had to do to stop Kusaka.

"Goodbye, Matsumoto," he said. _Thank you_. Perhaps she heard him. Perhaps he muffled the words as they came out.

He went over to his quarters, and retrieved his haori. Held it out before him, and then accepted it. As the light weight of the haori settled over his shoulders, Hitsugaya pulled himself up. Taller. Prouder. Straighter. Hyorinmaru went on his back, over the haori and he fastened the brass star-shaped clip.

Without regret, without anger, with purpose and duty, the Captain of the Tenth Division went to war.


	10. Superhuman Damned

**X: SUPERHUMAN DAMNED**

As the week ended, the Tenth Division returned the King's Seal to the Central Forty-Six compound. The ceremonies were subdued; their Captain was missing, and wanted by Soul Society. While Lieutenant Matsumoto performed her duties impeccably, the absence of Hitsugaya Toshiro, the Captain of the Tenth Division was a glaring gap in the ceremony as it continued.

Lieutenant Matsumoto performed the required ceremonial release of Haineko, as ash coalesced in the shape of a giant cat that smiled and bared its claws before dissolving into a heap of ash and then reforming as her blade. The King's Seal was then conveyed, under six guards, back to the vault in which it would remain until it was next required by the Central Forty-Six, which was to say, almost never.

As Matsumoto sealed the doors of the vault, she didn't glance behind her.

A small figure detached himself from the shadows, and settled in to wait.

As it was, he wasn't disappointed. He didn't have to wait for very long.

* * *

Hitsugaya knew when the vault doors first slid open.

He knew, because there was the faintest glimmer of light at the end of the long hallway, and because the seal on the door was only _so_ sensitive. His reiatsu and Kusaka's reiatsu were almost identical, enough to fool Mayuri and the team of scientists from the Twelfth Division, enough to fool Matsumoto and anyone who was familiar enough with his reiatsu.

Enough to fool everyone, except Hitsugaya himself.

When the door had been primed to respond to the touch of Hitsugaya's reiatsu, it had been primed to respond to Kusaka's reiatsu as well. It wasn't able to make as fine a distinction between the two different reiatsu as it should have. Hitsugaya had argued long and hard with Ukitake when he'd learned of the man's plan, but he had ultimately decided to trust the Captain.

And so he waited, here in the vault itself, for Kusaka to make his approach. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness without the need for a _Tsukero_ light spell. As Kusaka approached the vault, Hitsugaya saw that Kusaka had chosen to create a _Tsukero_ light, anyway. It floated above him as he walked on.

Hitsugaya's hand clenched on Hyorinmaru's hilt. Knowing that he had to kill Kusaka was one thing. Looking on Kusaka while he remained hidden, waiting for the moment to strike, was something else entirely.

Kusaka Sojiro had never existed, Kyoraku had said.

Kusaka entered the vault.

Hitsugaya forced himself to relax, released the tension in his shoulders, which would slow him on the draw. Kusaka smiled. He approached the pedestal on which the King's Seal rested.

In a smooth movement, Hitsugaya drew Hyorinmaru, in a textbook-perfect The Lotus Unfurls Its Petals. The cold steel of the zanpakuto slid through the air, the point of the sword coming to rest just before Kusaka's throat as Hitsugaya stepped forward from the well of shadow.

"Oh," Kusaka said, "I was wondering how long you were going to wait."

Unperturbed, he stared at the tip of Hitsugaya's sword. He was relaxed, as if he had all the time in the world. Kusaka said, "So you figured it out after all. Really a _tensai_."

Hitsugaya stiffened, but gave Kusaka a cold nod. "It was obvious," he said, "Once I'd thought about it. I was right about Kyoraku. You hadn't attacked him because you had targeted him. It was opportunity. You ran into Kyoraku when you were scouting out your various angles of approach in the Central Forty-Six compound. You were after the King's Seal. Ukitake provided the final clue. The Seal breaks all boundaries, he said. All laws of nature are nothing to the Seal because it is imbued with the power of the Soul King, who is the linchpin anchoring reality. The Seal _rewrites history_ , Ukitake said, but he meant it rewrites reality to its bearer's will. And that is what you were after. The only question is, how did you know about that?"

Kusaka applauded, slowly, mockingly even. "Oh, very good, _tensai_." He said. "Almost full marks but I'll give you credit for trying."

Hitsugaya narrowed his eyes. "Which was it?" he asked.

"Why I want the Seal," Kusaka said. He gently pushed aside Hyorinmaru, touching the flat of the blade. He reached out one hand, and touched the King's Seal, which had begun to glow with a faint light—

Hitsugaya moved to stop him—

The chamber dissolved in a wash of dark violet light, and the last thing Hitsugaya saw was the mark of the King's Seal, the intricate web of lines burning midnight violet—

And then reality _twisted, dissolved,_ and reshaped itself and wriggled into a new place and then settled there like it had always been—

* * *

His name was Kusaka Sojiro.

_Blink._

He was born in the fifth district of West Rukongai, which is to say that a childless couple adopted him when he first came to Soul Society, sent there by a shinigami.

_Blink._

He liked persimmons, especially dried persimmons. He liked the taste of nori, the clear autumn sky at twilight.

_Blink._

He first left home because the dragon summoned him in a voice like an earthquake, that shattered the sky like thunder. So he sat for the entrance exams, joined the Academy, made a name for himself as one of the cleverest students in the class.

In his fifth year, he met a young student by the name of Hitsugaya Toshiro.

_Blink._

They fought.

_Blink._

They did not fight.

_Blink._

_He was the Captain of the Tenth Division_.

 _Blink_.

Reality oscillated, like a membrane, like a taut string, to and fro.

_Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink._

* * *

_What?_

Shaken, Hitsugaya struggled to free himself from the tide of images. Worlds both realised and unrealised. The King's Seal has the power to change reality itself, Hitsugaya heard Ukitake say once more in his head. Reality unfurled around them, history rewrote itself, again and again and again on multiple canvasses. Kusaka still held the King's Seal, which was glowing with a dark violet light—from the Seal, electric violet cracks issued forward. They were cracks in the fabric of reality, Hitsugaya realised, wildly. Kusaka did _not_ know how to use the Seal!

Instinctively, he knew that if Kusaka kept hold of the Seal, reality would tear itself apart. This couldn't continue. He charged forward then, struck with Harvesting Barley. Kusaka reverse-drew Hyorinmaru in time to parry the blow, and managed to keep a hold on the Seal.

Hitsugaya ducked beneath Kusaka's follow-up slash before it would have laid open his left eye, and then fell to a knee to strike out with a broad, sweeping slash aimed at Kusaka's torso.

_Blink._

Kusaka wore the haori of the Tenth Division. He lashed out in Leaf Floating On Water. Hitsugaya was on his feet now; he blocked the blow and riposted, his blade hammering in low, but it met Kusaka's defence.

He didn't dare to glance away, he couldn't afford distractions in battle, but he didn't feel the familiar feel of the haori as he moved.

He moved backward, ready to deliver a two-handed strike when—

 _Blink_.

Kusaka pivoted and tried Willow in Breeze. Hitsugaya parried with Paired Sunbirds, and this time, his return stroke bit through Kusaka's defence. There was a light tugging, and then he drew a thin line of blood across Kusaka's cheek.

Time returned to normal, sped up.

_Blink._

This was the fight they had never had, that they were supposed to have. Hitsugaya attacked with Sickle Moon, Setting Sun, A Thousand Falling Leaves, Pebble In A Brook—he must have initiated a thousand forms and more. Each blow of his sword, each strike was a desperate attempt to overload Kusaka's defense, to force him to drop the Seal and wield his zanpakuto two-handed. Kusaka parried madly, flash-stepped away from some of his attacks.

Htitsugaya ground his teeth together as he stepped up on his attack, and almost paid the price for his recklessness there and then as Kusaka's blade opened a slice along his ribs.

It was only experience that had Hitsugaya turning away so it was a glancing cut; Kusaka's slash would have bitten deep and then the fight would have been over there and then. Kusaka was not an opponent to be underestimated—Hitsugaya reminded himself of that, again and again.

Kusaka was grinning, wildly and fiercely. "I've gotten a lot better since then," he promised, hefting the Seal in his right hand, the artefact still shining so brightly that Hitsugaya had to look away, try to shield his eyes with the crook of his elbow. Still, his gaze was almost drawn to that dark-midnight-violet light, burning with the unbearable brightness of a thousand suns.

Had Kusaka found out how to work the Seal?

"So have I," Hitsugaya croaked, and was surprised to find his throat very dry.

 _Blink_.

Worlds, and timelines—past, future, possible—converged upon the battle in this vault. _Think_ , Hitsugaya told himself, with a growl of frustration. _You're not Kusaka's equal with the sword so you can't afford to be stupid!_ What was Kusaka trying to achieve?

 _The King's Seal rewrites reality itself_. What was reality?

Worlds converged, collided and smashed into each other. Reality squirmed, like a fat worm upon a fishing-hook. Once, at Kusaka's urging, they'd snuck off from the Academy to go fishing. They'd never been caught.

How was he doing this?

Blood dripped from the shallow cut across his ribs. Hitsugaya attacked once more, but he'd lost control of the battle. Kusaka easily blocked his attempts at creating an opening, and then his sword slipped into an opening Hitsugaya had inadvertently left him. Hyorinmaru bit into Hitsugaya's leg, and he cried out, already trying to backpedal.

Too slow.

He fell to his knees.

Kusaka said, "I want to live."

Hitsugaya was in the clearing. He held a rock in his hand.

He said, "I know."

Kusaka said, "I want to _live_."

Hitsugaya said, "I know."

 _You wanted to survive, in the end. More than you wanted him to live. Do not doubt that._ Hyorinmaru, speaking to him. Or a memory.

Time like liquid honey, cool ice in his veins.

Kusaka's blade came down.

 _Blink_.

It stopped.

_Blink._

Hitsugaya slammed Hyorinmaru up in a two-handed block. Sparks flew as the two swords shoved against each other, Kusaka trying to overpower him by brute force. He was standing, he had the advantage. Hitsugaya suddenly let go.

He gave in, stopped pushing back, and threw himself out of the way, his leg screaming in protest. He thought of _ice_ and took a moment to freeze his cuts over. It would not heal them. It was a stop-gap measure at best.

He would feel every second of missed pain later. It was like flipping a switch in his brain. Right now, the pain cut out. It was unimportant.

He rolled and came back up on his feet, crouching in a ready stance, Hyorinmaru upraised.

The glow from the Seal had dimmed; but it was still there. He still had to take out the Seal, before Kusaka did something _permanent_ with it. The next exchange brought them close together; recklessly, Hitsugaya attacked, moving even closer still.

 _There are three rings of attack and defense_ , Arai said. _The outer ring is the safest. Long, sweeping strikes are initiated from the outer ring, but they're also the easiest to block._

_Blink._

He parried and then stepped in close and tried to wrest the Seal from Kusaka. Kusaka held on for dear life.

_A good swordsman avoids the inner ring. Attacks from within the inner ring are too swift to properly defend against, and it's hard to wield a sword up close. A strategy too risky and best left for the swordsman with a death wish._

_Blink. Blink. Blink._

Hitsugaya dug his thumbnail into the base of Kusaka's thumb until he drew blood and Kusaka involuntarily relaxed his grip with a cry. He managed to pry Kusaka's fingers open as Hyorinmaru cut deep into Kusaka's bicep. He gripped the Seal with his bloodied fingers, and then—

_Blink._

Reality shifted, settled into place, firmed.

Settled back where it was, like a stretched rubber band with a memory of what it _should_ be. What it _ought_ to be like.

_Blink._

He tucked the Seal away in his clothing and gripped Hyorinmaru in both hands. A storm brewed in Kusaka's crimson eyes.

He adjusted his grip on Hyorinmaru, so he, too, was wielding the blade two-handed.

And then, Kusaka said, "Bankai."

 _Kuso_ , Hitsugaya thought. It seemed the best time for the word.

* * *

Kusaka's reiatsu exploded outwards, vanishing as it met the sekkiseki of the vault. Hitsugaya had gambled on delaying Kusaka long enough for the sekkiseki to drain away the reiatsu he could spend, aware that his plan was risky. Part of a battle was knowing the ground, and Hitsugaya had decided that fighting in the vault itself was for the best. It would limit the damage, and the sekkiseki would drain off Kusaka's reiatsu, if they fought for long enough.

The risk was that in waiting for so long in the vault, Hitsugaya himself would be handicapped, more so than Kusaka would be.

He tried to draw on his reiatsu, to gather enough for bankai and failed. His senses were closing in on him, one of the signs of overexposure to sekkiseki.

Kusaka stepped forward, wings of purple ice stretched out to their limit. _This_ , Hitsugaya thought, was how it felt to look on his bankai from someone else's perspective. The first word that came to mind was, majestic.

Futilely, Hitsugaya held up Hyorinmaru in a defensive stance, releasing it into shikai wordlessly. He had enough reiatsu for _that_ , at least. And then he did something he'd considered, but had never quite developed as a strategy; he sent the resulting ice dragon coiling around him, like a shield.

Why had Kusaka called on his bankai? There wasn't enough room in the vault to manoeuvre.

"Give me the Seal, Hitsugaya," Kusaka said, quietly.

"No," Hitsugaya said. He'd sensed reality warp and quiver, almost to its breaking point in Kusaka's hands. Kusaka didn't know how to use the Seal, and the backlash had almost torn reality apart. He raised Hyorinmaru, a little higher. "Come on and take it from me."

Kusaka struck. Dragons of ice lashed out as he swung Hyorinmaru, whipping for Hitsugaya. The large circling ice dragon that Hitsugaya had raised as a defensive shield smashed them to smithereens, but dissolved. Hitsugaya charged in at Kusaka, closing the distance between them with a swift flash-step. Parting The Clouds struck for Kusaka's torso. Kusaka blocked that and elbowed Hitsugaya in the solar plexus.

Hitsugaya staggered back, gasping, stunned.

Kusaka smiled and another dragon of ice formed from the tip of Hyorinmaru and hammered into Hitsugaya. The dragon hit him with the force of a meteor, cold ice crystalising all around on Hitsugaya's clothing, smashing him into the ground.

Hitsugaya flared his reiatsu, as much as he had, ice shifting and melting off him, flowing like water. He had managed to hang on to Hyorinmaru—Arai would have skinned him alive if he still dropped his weapon—and he sprang back on his feet as quickly as he could.

"Guncho Tsurara!" he countered, launching a flurry of icicles at Kusaka. Almost contemptuously, Kusaka gestured, and a shield of ice formed. The icicles clattered off the shield, though one or two of them lodged in the shield, which then crumbled.

Hitsugaya tried a two-handed slip-strike. Kusaka parried and although Hitsugaya was already turning away, his riposte sliced open another long cut along Hitsugaya's ribs.

"Give up," Kusaka taunted. "I was always better than you."

"No," Hitsugaya said. "You were the better swordsman." He shut off the pain, the warmth of his blood spilling, froze the cut solid with an effort of will and came in again on the attack. But Kusaka, as he had said, was the better swordsman, and armed with Hitsugaya's experience, he turned aside Hitsugaya's attacks with relative ease.

Finally, Hitsugaya feinted. Kusaka blocked, but Hitsuagaya threw himself forward, putting his momentum and his body weight behind the strike. Hyorinmaru tore through Kusaka's throat in Kingfisher Spears Fish, and Kusaka opened another cut along Hitsugaya's side.

Hitsugaya turned. _Wha—?_

He parried the next blow, the one which sent him to his knees, mostly on reflex, but he was already off-balance while Kusaka had delivered the blow with solid footing.

_Footwork, Hitsugaya! Arai barked._

_How—?_

Kusaka stood over him.

"Zahnyo Ningyo," Kusaka said. "I'm sure you remember. Goodbye." He raised the zanpakuto, preparatory to delivering a long, sweeping slash.

The blade came down.

It met another with the sweet bell-note of steel on steel.

"I'm sorry, Taicho!" Matsumoto Rangiku said. "As your instructions ordered, I waited until Kusaka had used the ice clone."

Kusaka said, "What?"

On his knees, Hitsugaya managed a swift uppercut. Hyorinmaru smashed into Kusaka's blade, and then he forced the blade up and away from himself. Rising, Hitsugaya performed a turning slash, just as properly as if it had been under Arai's watchful eye.

Matsumoto flanked Kusaka. " _Unare, Haineko!"_ she barked, and the ash of her blade whipped out, drawing a dark grey line across the icy surface of a great wing. Matsumoto simply smiled, and the ash clumped together in a single spot on the wing.

The next moment, water dripped onto the ground as a hole opened in the middle of the wing of ice. Matsumoto barked, "Hado, thirty-third spell! Sokatsui!" The shortened incantation reduced the power of the spell, but it nevertheless smashed into the great wing of ice in a torrent of spiritual energy. While most of it was deflected, some of it travelled through the hole in the wing to hit Kusaka.

At the same time, Hitsugaya was whipping Hyorinmaru up in a spiraling cut which simply sawed off the tip of the wing as if it was melted cheese. His second stroke sheared off more ice.

" _What?"_ Kusaka said, again.

He was trying to regrow the wings which were his best defense against a pair of opponents, but Matsumoto gave him no chance to do so. She set Haineko's ash to melting more holes in his ice and launching a flurry of kido spells at him.

On the other hand, Hitsugaya kept Kusaka busy with a flurry of bladework, forcing Kusaka on the defensive. Kusaka tried to trap Hitsugaya's blade with Hyorinmaru's chain, but Hitsugaya simply jerked his sword free before Kusaka could tighten the chain. When Kusaka tried again, Hitsugaya stepped closer and rammed the pommel of Hyorinmaru straight into Kusaka's nose.

It broke, with a crunch of impact, and blood streamed down Kusaka's face as he let out a cry of pain and struggled to breathe. Matsumoto's Sokatsui had managed to burn a wound in his side, and now Hitsugaya took advantage of the distraction caused by the broken nose to attack with renewed ferocity.

Kusaka was the better swordsman. Had always been. Hitsugaya had been the clever one, the cunning one. He'd chosen the vault as the place they would clash, because the sekkiseki would hamper Kusaka, bite into the amount of reiatsu he could draw on. And it was a confined space; it was hard to properly unleash Hyorinmaru in a confined space.

He'd considered being outfenced by Kusaka and considered that an acceptable risk.

Matsumoto was here, now, and she was still fresh, while they were both tiring. He suspected that the Tenth Division was waiting outside the vault. Even if he fell here, the deck had been thoroughly stacked against Kusaka. At least one of them wasn't walking out of here again.

Hitsugaya attacked, keeping Kusaka on his toes, as blood dripped from Kusaka's broken nose—smashed, rather. With a fluidity and creativity Arai would have approved of, Hitsugaya aborted the forms entirely, throwing a series of overhand slashes at Kusaka, and then coming at him from unusual angles, turning slashes into stabs, and whirling about so that a thrust became a backhand slash. All the while, Matsumoto harried Kusaka with low-level Hado spells, even as the last of Kusaka's ice melted.

The sekkiseki was taking its toll on Kusaka at last. He could not regrow the ice, and soon abandoned that as an avenue of defense.

"Sennen Hyoro!" Kusaka whispered.

The ice that had strewn the floor, the melting ice, all of it solidified, gathered up into gigantic pillars like teeth, like dragon fangs. Kusaka twisted Hyorinmaru's blade. Like a key in a lock.

And then the great pillars of ice crashed in on Hitsugaya, like the grinding of two tectonic plates.

* * *

There was no escaping a Sennen Hyoro, Hitsugaya knew. Not a properly prepared Sennen Hyoro. But while Kusaka might have been planning this, this was born as much out of desperation as of the germ of a genuine tactic.

Kusaka was at his limit, and utterly spent. So was Hitsugaya. He pushed and found the last remaining kernel of strength with which to flare his reiatsu and shatter the Sennen Hyoro. Ice smashed and crumbled into tiny bits of dry dust around him. Hitsugaya fell to his knees, and levered himself to his feet, using Hyorinmaru as a crutch. He tried to hide the trembling in his arms.

Kusaka wasn't much better. He teetered on his feet, barely avoided the dark slash of Haineko's ash. He glanced over at Hitsugaya, and his lips moved in a faint smile.

Hitsugaya raised Hyorinmaru, point directed at Kusaka in a silent challenge.

Kusaka moved in the classic response, blade upraised.

He chose Hummingbird Flirts With The Rose, Hyorinmaru and his body responding to his thought, flowing through the form like water into a container, flowing into the container that was Kusaka's defense. Hummingbird met Wintering Bear, and then Hitsugaya was moving on and past Kusaka.

Hyorinmaru, Kusaka's zanpakuto snapped, about a foot from the hilt, as their swords met. Hitsugaya's blade ripped through the sword like a knife through weakened steel. In that same moment of realisation, Hitsugaya was already turning. His backswing encountered resistance as it cut into flesh and tore open Kusaka's torso from side to side in a diagonal slash.

The stink hit him, then, and Hitsugaya knew that it was a gut wound.

Kusaka turned, staggered.

"Finish this," he whispered.

There was only one thing left that Hitsugaya could do. He nodded, and then drew Hyorinmaru back and rammed it through Kusaka's throat.

He left it there.

He was so _damned_ tired.

"Taicho?" Matsumoto asked.

Warmth seeped into his clothing. Only then did Hitsugaya realise that Kusaka's blow had cut open a second slash along his torso. Before his blade had shattered, perhaps. It just hadn't cut as deep. The first wound was bleeding sluggishly again.

Hitsugaya swayed, forced himself to remain upright. "I think we've won, Matsumoto," he said. He wasn't sure, himself.

He never noticed when he fell.


	11. Memory and Desire

**XI: MEMORY AND DESIRE**

"It was the Seal," Hitsugaya said, after he had shrugged back into his shihakusho, and then slipped on his haori. Matsumoto's hands were bandaged from kido backlash; while Hitsugaya had subsequently discovered wounds he didn't remember sustaining back then. "Unohana discovered that the only thing that had stopped Kusaka's blade from penetrating deeper was the Seal."

"The Seal's powers?" Matsumoto asked, curious.

"No," Hitsugaya said. "The Seal itself stopped the blade." Fortunately, Hyorinmaru hadn't cut through the Seal. Hitsugaya shivered to think of the fit Central Forty-Six would have thrown if the Seal had been broken in any way. What impact did a broken Seal have, anyway? Perhaps they would never know. Hitsugaya, for one, was thankful for that.

Matsumoto let out a low whistle, inadvertently echoing the direction of Hitsugaya's thoughts. "Wow. Luckily, Kusaka's zanpakuto didn't cut the Seal or we'd both be in for it, Taicho!"

"Yes," he said. A close enough call.

Kusaka was dead, given a nameless grave at the order of Central Forty-Six, the only end allowed all traitors to Soul Society. Considering even Ichimaru Gin had finally merited a grave among the Third Division, Hitsugaya wasn't certain what to think of that. In the process, Hitsugaya's name was cleared to everyone's satisfaction, and the ancient law upheld.

He had, after all, killed Kusaka with his own hands. Again.

"Taicho?" Matsumoto asked.

Hitsugaya blinked, and snapped out of his thought. "Yes, Matsumoto?"

"You seemed…lost in thought." It was a bright and clear day, Hitsugaya thought, even as the autumnal sky was a sharp, delicate shade of blue. The leaves crunched underfoot as they walked back to their Division. There was no grave to visit. By giving Kusaka a nameless grave, Central Forty-Six had made sure of that. The purge was complete, now, as it had been before. Only the Archives witnessed, and spoke. Hitsugaya wondered what Kyoraku had written, what Kyoraku was surely writing.

"I'm fine."

"I didn't say you weren't."

He changed the subject. "How did you know to wait in the ventilation shaft? The letter?"

Matsumoto looked faintly surprised. "Yes," she said. "You told me to do so in the letter. To post Tenth Division squads at the entrances and exits, and to wait in the ventilation shaft above the main tunnel. You ordered me to join the fight only after Kusaka had thrown away the ice clone. To speak to Captain Ukitake if you had died, rather than to engage Kusaka."

Hitsugaya frowned. He didn't remember writing the letter. But the letter in his own handwriting had said, _trust me. All will be revealed in due time._

And so he had. And now Kusaka was dead.

Hitsugaya felt…tired. Empty. Was it supposed to end like this? Was this the best ending that they could have written, no matter what? Almost reflexively, his hand went to where the King's Seal still sat, tucked inside his shihakusho. The vault had to be cleaned up before the Seal could be returned, and protocol called for the security of the vault to be inspected. In the meantime, Hitsugaya supposed he was supposed to hang on to the Seal.

"The ice was different," Matsumoto said, suddenly.

"What?"

"It was purple," Matsumoto said, thoughtfully. "A deep, dark purple—not like the ice I've seen Hyorinmaru create. I wonder what happened."

 _The Seal_ , Hitsugaya thought. It had to be. In the moments that Kusaka had taken the Seal…Hitsugaya didn't know how to describe it, the blur of images. It was as if they stood in the eye of a hurricane of worlds, and the only thing that had kept reality from falling apart as reality bent and skewed in every possible direction imaginable was his managing to retrieve the Seal from Kusaka. The ice created by Kusaka had a purple glint to the dragon's eyes, the strange corruption, because Kusaka had been brought back by the Seal. It had only deepened after Kusaka had touched the Seal, had tried to wield it.

And what had Kusaka tried to do, in the moments he had held almost absolute power in his hand?

A hell butterfly fluttered down, to hover before him. Hitsugaya held out his hand for the butterfly to alight. "Captain Hitsugaya Toshiro. You are requested to report to the office of the Captain-Commander for a debriefing."

Matsumoto shot him a worried glance; Hitsugaya said, "Go back to the Division, Matsumoto. I'll return once the Captain-Commander is done with me."

He set off, feeling the light breeze that moved through the space, swirling around his clothing and stirring it in a shiver of pleasant cold, before it was gone.

* * *

Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni was one of the pillars of Soul Society, it was said. Stark and unyielding, the formidable old man had a presence that towered over the Gotei Thirteen like a mountain. Hitsugaya knocked lightly on the office door and waited, before pushing it open.

"Hitsugaya-taicho," the old man said, staring at him. Hitsugaya stared right back for the count of three heartbeats before he looked down at the ground. "Your report states that you engaged and killed Kusaka Sojiro in the vault underneath the Central Forty-Six."

"Yes," Hitsugaya said. "He planned to steal the King's Seal."

"I see," Yamamoto said. His hands shifted on the broad, knotted top of his staff, only it wasn't a staff. Not all the Captains knew this, but Hitsugaya had learned that Yamamoto's staff, which he was never seen without, was really the old man's zanpakuto, Ryujin Jakka. The oldest and most powerful fire-type zanpakuto in Soul Society, Ryujin Jakka was an opponent not to be taken lightly, and neither was Yamamoto. The old man had a reputation for being uncompromising, tough-as-nails, and for building a stable era of peace in which Soul Society had turned from a ragtag collection of killers into something they could be proud of.

Something worth defending.

"And the murders?"

"Revenge," Hitsugaya said. "And opportunity." His hand moved—almost of its own volition—to where the King's Seal nestled in the inner pocket of his shihakusho. If Yamamoto noticed, the old man said nothing. "I suspect that they played a role in helping Kusaka gain access to the vault. Our attention was preoccupied with the murders, rather than the protection of the King's Seal."

"Good," Yamamoto said, shortly.

Something occurred to Hitsugaya. Yamamoto was too removed, as if the only thing concerning him was the _how_ , rather than the _why_ , or even the _who_. Call it instinct, but something twinged, at that moment. He thought about how swift the Gotei Thirteen had been to sign off his arrest warrant, and spoke before he could convince himself to remain silent. "You could just have pointed me at the murders. Sir."

Yamamoto's eyes narrowed. "Explain yourself, Hitsugaya-taicho!" The sternness in his tone would have sent Hitsugaya running for the hills when he'd first taken on the Captain's job. Now. he drew on the glacial calm and stubborn pride of the dragon, bending before the flare of the Captain-Commander's reiatsu, bent but unbroken. A reed in the path of the wind.

"You arranged this," Hitsugaya said, and as he spoke, it all made sense to him. "You went with Central Forty-Six, in signing off on the capture and suspension orders. You wanted me to seek out the murderer who was killing everyone and to stop him. I think you even knew it was Kusaka. You just wanted me to solve the problem. Sir."

Yamamoto went very silent and very still. The sense of reiatsu redoubled, and redoubled again until it was all Hitsugaya could do to keep breathing, not to fall to his knees. _Be careful when you speak to Yama-ji,_ Kyoraku had told him, and now his warning repeated again and again in Hitsugaya's mind as Hitsugaya wondered if he had gone too far.

"Kusaka Sojiro was never a member of the Gotei Thirteen," Yamamoto finally said. "There were political considerations to consider. As you know, since Aizen, the Central Forty-Six and the nobles have been cautious of the Gotei Thirteen's increased independence. It would not have suited either of them to admit to the purge in a public investigation." It was the closest, Hitsugaya realised, that he was ever going to get to an admission. "You are forbidden to speak of the Kusaka Sojiro incident to any member of the Gotei Thirteen. This incident is now classified."

Hitsugaya was too tired to argue. And no Captain argued with the Captain-Commander, anyway.

He bowed in acknowledgement of the order. "May I go?" he asked, though it bothered on the edge of rudeness. "Are you done with me, Captain-Commander?"

"You are dismissed," Yamamoto said, and that allowance for what was normally a breach in etiquette, too, was probably the most leeway he was ever going to get from Yamamoto on this issue.

Hitsugaya left.

* * *

He suppressed his annoyance, but it still tinged his reiatsu, spilled out and gave the cold air around him extra bite today. The walk back to the Tenth Division was long, and Hitsugaya didn't bother to employ flash-steps. He'd spent most of the past week running around Soul Society, and it felt good to be taking a long, slow walk for once.

In any case, the frustration seethed inside him, but by the time Hitsugaya returned to the Tenth Division, he was beginning to feel a little more human again. When he saw Ukitake waiting for him in his office, he startled before remembering his manners. "Ukitake," he greeted.

"Hitsugaya-taicho," Ukitake smiled. He was holding a folded missive, Hitsugaya noticed, and a massive hamper of candy. He managed to hide that inward groan. "I brought you some candy! Congratulations on a task well done!"

Already, the trappings of normality were beginning to steal back into his life, even though Hitsugaya felt things couldn't possibly be the same again. Life went on. "Yes," he said wearily, pinching the bridge of his nose and wondering how much he could fob off on Yachiru. He could visit the Eleventh Division and shove the entire hamper into her arms as a gesture of goodwill, he thought. "Thank you, Ukitake."

Ukitake held out the letter, and now Hitsugaya noticed the characters on the front of the letter spelled out his name. More significantly, he recognised his own handwriting. "This was left for you," he said, "And I supposed now was as good a time as any other to give you the letter."

Hitsugaya took the letter, slipped it into a pocket of his shihakusho. "Thank you." He would read it later, after Ukitake left.

Ukitake coughed. "Well, that was it, really. I did want to tell you…not to be too hard on the old man. Shunsui's words. He makes the decisions that he thinks are best for Soul Society first, and then the Gotei Thirteen second. People, subordinates…they don't enter into it at all."

"But you didn't agree with him," Hitsugaya said. "You and Kyoraku fought him at Kuchiki Rukia's execution."

"Well, yes," Ukitake said, awkwardly. He laid a hand on Hitsugaya's shoulder for a moment. "A Captain's perogative, Hitsugaya-taicho. To balance what the law tells you you must do with what you feel you must do. But no doubt you already know this, working with Lieutenant Matsumoto."

"Yes. Yes, I do."

"Yamamoto-sotaicho…doesn't have the luxury of such thinking," he finally said. "Perhaps it is a good thing. But I think more simply, it is what it is." A long silence fell between them, for a time. "Well, then," Ukitake said, "I should leave you to your letter. Please enjoy the candy, Hitsugaya-taicho, and feel free to pay me a visit for more candy."

He let himself out, and Hitsugaya took out the letter and unfolded it.

 _Hitsugaya Toshiro—_ , it began,

_You remember approaching Ukitake for help. You woke up after taking a short nap in the Ugendo pavilion, and then read a letter you had written to yourself. In it, I asked you to trust me. Well, if Ukitake has given you this letter, then you did what you had to do. Kusaka is dead._

_You approached Ukitake because you guessed that only three Captains in Soul Society had the experience and the knowledge you needed. Kyoraku was out of commission, and approaching Unohana was too dangerous. So you approached Ukitake. You suspected that Kusaka might read your intentions from your mind, as he was your manifestation. (He was also your friend.) And so you devised a plan, with Ukitake's help, and then wrote three letters: one to Matsumoto, in order to lay a trap for Kusaka. You deduced he was attempting to go after the King's Seal. The second was to yourself, stressing that it was important that you did not read Matsumoto's letter, and that you follow only the instructions written in the letter._

_In that letter, you said you had to wait in the vault, on the day the Seal was returned to Central Forty-Six. Matsumoto was not to know about this. You would lie in wait and ambush Kusaka as he attempted to steal the Seal. This was only partially correct. You had planned for the Seal to be the bait. You would be the anvil, but a trap is useless without a hammer. That was the role you assigned Matsumoto and the members of your Division._

_This is the third letter. You may be wondering how Matsumoto knew to turn up. This is why. You know that there are forbidden kido, spells that a shinigami can cast only on pain of punishment. Nevertheless, many of the forbidden spells were, once before, not proscribed. The spell to erase a shinigami's memory has often been misused and used under the most ambiguous of circumstances. You asked Ukitake to remove the memory of your planning, so that Kusaka could not use the knowledge against you. You woke up in the Ugendo pavilion and likely simply assumed that you fell asleep shortly after._

_The memories will never return. You knew this. You felt it had to be done, that it had to be the price you would pay to stop Kusaka._

— _Hitsugaya Toshiro._

Kusaka had died, Hitsugaya thought, as he crumpled the letter. But so had Kahei. When he thought about it, the scales seemed balanced, even though it seemed terribly unfair. The Captain's perogative, Ukitake had said. Kyoraku called that making the best out of a bad lot of sake. Many decisions that a Captain had to make were never easy. More often than not, they seemed mired in so many wrongs, so much that wasn't fair.

 _Life isn't_ _ **fair**_ _,_ Arai would counter, unperturbed when his students complained about his uncompromisingly high standards. _That's your job._

To make it fair.

Kusaka had wanted that, once. What did it mean for _him?_

Hitsugaya took out the King's Seal, and laid it on the table.

He looked at it for a very long time.

* * *

"Ken-chan! Whitey-chan is here!" Yachiru chirped, flinging herself down onto the broad shoulders of Zaraki Kenpachi. The Captain of the Eleventh Division grunted.

"What does that pip-squeak want, anyway?"

He thought it was a bleeding shame that the runt had gone and killed himself some long-dead shinigami, or so the word went. He hadn't been paying very much attention to anything except that he'd lost the chance to have what must have been a pretty damn good fight. Bloody pip-squeak beat him to it. If he wasn't strictly banned from challenging Captains to formal duels within the bounds of the Seireitei, spelled out in terms that even Zaraki Kenpachi would follow…

Well.

As it was, he sucked on the inside of his cheek as he picked up his zanpakuto and strode out to see what the pip-squeak wanted.

* * *

Hitsugaya Toshiro stood in the training yards of the Eleventh Division, watching as pairs of recruits charged recklessly at Madarame Ikakku. That Madarame hadn't even drawn his sword didn't seem to matter to them as they charged him with their zanpakuto. Madarame was skilled, that much was clear, as he smashed aside defenses and thrust his sheathed zanpakuto into gaps in their attacks. "You and you," Ayasegawa Yumichika commented, presiding over the madhouse that passed for training sessions in the Eleventh Division. "An ugly defense. You're dead. You. You just lost your legs. Please kneel down so the fight can continue in a more beautiful fashion."

At least, Hitsugaya thought, he couldn't make out the two low-ranking officers that he had provoked into a fight.

"There you are, pip-squeak!" Zaraki bellowed, ploughing straight through the chaos. "What do you want?"

"Whitey-chan!" Yachiru squealed, sliding down from Zaraki's back. "You never come around to play!"

Hitsugaya gritted his teeth, and almost regretted his decision. "Here," he said, shoving the hamper at her. "Ukitake sends his regards."

"Candy!" Yachiru exclaimed, excited. "Thank you, Whitey-chan! Ukkii always gives out tasty-looking candy!"

"Yo pip-squeak," Zaraki said, looming over his little hyperactive terror. "Why are you running errands for Ukitake, eh?" He bent down and lifted Yachiru and the hamper back onto his shoulders. In that moment, Hitsugaya saw: the hilts of Yachiru's zanpakuto and Zaraki's zanpakuto were different.

 _Of course they were,_ he told himself. Zaraki's zanpakuto was permanently released. Yachiru's was sealed. Even then….

_Of course they were._

"Things to do," Hitsugaya said shortly. "I don't ask you what you do with your spare time, do I?"

Zaraki chuckled. "S'pose not," he said grudgingly. "So what is this I hear about this imaginary shinigami running around Soul Society killing things, eh?"

"Hardly," Hitsugaya responded. Looking from Yachiru as she perched on Zaraki's shoulders and tore open the hamper and stuffed candy into her mouth with utter delight, to how obviously comfortable they were around each other… "He was real enough." More to himself, than to Zaraki. He repeated, "He was real."

"Whatcha lookin' at, pip-squeak?"

"Nothing," Hitsugaya said. The moment passed, and he decided not to say it. He looked once more, at the tall, intimidating figure that was Zaraki Kenpachi and the little girl he regarded with kindness and protected. No, he thought. There was nothing to be said here. He turned and walked away.

* * *

He found Matsumoto, very cheerfully drunk in the administrative office as she saluted him with a half-drunk bottle of sake. "Taicho!" she exclaimed. "Welcome back!"

"Matsumoto," Hitsugaya said. "Are you _drinking_ in the office?"

"Yes!"

"Matsumoto," Hitsugaya repeated. "The administrative office is not somewhere you can…party in!" He threw up his hands in frustration.

"Why not?" she pouted, which meant she was thoroughly on the way to getting drunk. "Taicho, if you don't celebrate the good moments in life, what else is there left?"

Hitsugaya took a few deep breaths. "Celebrate somewhere else," he suggested, almost begged. So much for his hopes for some peace and quiet.

"Nope!" She managed to grab at his sleeve and drag him over. "C'mon Taicho, at least drink a few sips of sake!"

"Matsumoto, sharing a bottle is hardly— _ulp!_ " Sake spilled on his shihakusho, and down his throat, burning as it went down. "Matsumoto!"

He could try to hide away all he wanted, but life went on, and the only thing he could do was to go on living. It hurt to do so, and he felt weary, but a measure of life was pain and all the ragged messy things and problematic decisions that came with it. A measure of justice had been found for the dead, Hitsugaya thought, but justice, fairness—it was just as much for the living; for him, for Matsumoto, and for a Captain with a ragged haori and an eyepatch and his hyperactive little pink menace. For a couple who had or had not lived in the fifth district of Rukongai.

They owed just as much to the living as to the dead.

Sake wasn't a cure to those aches, but the company of friends, people he knew and trusted with his life, was.

His reiatsu welled up; for a few moments, the spilled sake froze over, where it puddled on his clothing and on the floor, and then the ice crumbled, flaking away, glittering like tears, like diamonds, and then underfoot like so much dust.

For a few moments, in the sunlight, the ice glittered a pale icy blue, but in its depths—

—perhaps it was a trick of the light, but violet fire danced in the facets of the ice, and then in a flash, it was all gone.

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I've written a decent amount of time ago, and I've certainly stopped following Bleach past the Xcution arc, so a decent number of things are going to be 'uncanon'. (For instance, prior to the reveal, I had headcanon that there was one Lieutenant in the Eighth Division separating Lisa and Nanao, and that was Hitsugaya, for a very short amount of time. We now know this to be untrue, but I have seen no reason to change this headcanon. If you're already diverging from canon at some points, why not go further, right?)
> 
> tldr; 1. If taking liberties with canon disturbs you, it may be best to not read this fic. Otherwise, I hope it's an interesting read.  
> 2\. Canon exists up to the point of the Fake KT arc. Everything thereafter has been ignored.  
> 3\. Something else has been ignored. It will become apparent later on.


End file.
